Simone Jurčová o Danielovi Bidelnicovi

The work of Daniel Bidelnica has developed in several stages. There is a thread winding throughout his work, something typical of his paintings that we can simply call CONTRAST. Even in his early work he strove to endow realistic depictions with modern expression – the contrast of ideas. The early 1990s was a turning point from realism to sheer geometric colour abstraction. One can perceive the exaltation of colour diversity and optimism. It is the stage of the discovery of the decorativeness of creative work, a joy to paint everything around; instead of canvas he used common objects. It was particularly seen at exhibitions at the Nitra State Gallery in 1991 and at the West Slovakia Museum in Trnava in 1992. He gradually returns to realism, but merely takes it as a grey obscure base – the background through which he projects first planar and strikingly contrasting modern abstraction – of shapes and colours. In these paintings he exploits the Renaissance drawings of the eyes and face, but emphasises the importance of the statement on the modern contrast – an artistic accent in the foreground. Inspired by history and recollections, Bidelnica created an important cycle of paraphrases of Caravaggio, a portraitist from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. However, he substantially changes the colour scheme – the shades of blue, aquamarine and violet are bold and garish. The attributes of famous paintings are changed as well. Bacchus is depicted with a bottle of Coca Cola, the boy’s basket with fruit is replaced by folders for documents and the lute player plays the synthesiser. Narcissus hopelessly looks at his image in the broken mirror and the boy who was stung by a lizard holds a modern tape recorder. The masterful citation of the period alternates with the ironic exaggeration of the modern period underlined by the change of colour scheme. The immanent opposite pole again dominates at various levels. The artist was inspired by a longer stay in Rome, where his wife spent a study period. A similar cycle of twelve paraphrases of ancient and Renaissance sculptures titled Ad Revidendum 2000 was created in the mid-1980s and it had a very progressive ecological undertone. Acrylicic under-painting of famous ancient Roman reliefs is disturbed by drawing in colour pastel with a touch of objective destruction and original harmony. In recent years the work of Daniel Bidelnica returned to abstract expression enhanced by the Caribbean inspirations and his enchantment with the countries of Central and South America. The line of a rainbow spectrum continues to develop through concrete symbols, from Mexican and Brazilian ornamentation to the latest neo-(P)Op art paintings. He proceeds from more complex artistic statements – bearers of more intricate messages to abbreviation and the simplicity of symbols. He exploits the polarity of form on a calm surface and a symptomatic colour contrast. The artist’s pictures are messengers of good mood and playfulness. They give me energy and I can well imagine his decorative paintings as fashion models showing a summer collection of a fashion designer (like in the 1960s) to spread optimism to the visitors to exhibitions and to the people in the streets. Not mentioning the fact that it would again be a contrast to the picture as the medium of painting expression.

Simone Jurčová

Art Theorist