Tomáš Absolon

Tomáš Absolon (*1987, Uherské Hradiště) lives and works in Prague. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he successively attended the studios of Jiří Petrbok, Jiří Černický, and Michael Rittstein. In 2016, he won second place in the Criticism Award for Young Painting. In his work, he has long been developing the visual possibilities of painting, treating the picture as an open space for abstract strategies, formal experiments, and the reduction of fragments from the real world. His works are characterized by striking colors, dynamic gestures, and compositional energy that evokes digital graphics, poster design, or gestural typography. Yet, they are always the result of a purely analog painting process—working with layers, color mixing, stencils, or dense strokes of the brush and oil pastels. Absolon's painterly signature is instantly recognizable. He combines organic imagination, a sense of rhythm, and color intensity with a precise, albeit intuitive gesture. His motifs stem from nature and its organic structures—from imaginary microscopic views into plant cells, to the rhythms and layers that naturally repeat in natural forms. Although his paintings appear abstract at first glance, they conceal visual echoes of the real world or fragments of popular culture.