artists

Daniel Pitín

An Archeology of Painting
Daniel Pitin, 2008
My most recent work has been focused on an investigation into the past. I try to dig up lost experiences (or at least those whose significance has been lost to me) that I have, for whatever reason, buried deep down in my subconscious. Something comes over me, an unexplainable impulse that can only be given shape through painting. In painting, I attempt to expose the real significance of some forgotten experience that has been buried under the dense layers of the preceding years.

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Daniel Pitin's film stills
Daniel Pitin choses as the subject of his paintings film stills not for the story they tell but for the gestures and expressions of its protagonists - movement and gestures are what interest Pitin and more often than not these are pained and violent. Our reactions to these are not ones of discomfort however but of attraction - the use of a refined, subtle color palette and gently expressive brush stroke lend these actions the adjectives beautiful, elegant. The movements no longer express a difficult emotion but are seen more for their purely physical traits, their movements in space and their unquestionable possession of the scene. This is accentuated by the fact that Daniel has chosen stills from classic movies such as Hitchcock's - highly stylized movies which while often of great psychological significance, seduce us by their aestheticism. Terrible things happen there but we cannot help but be attracted to this world of glamour and grand gestures. We are saturated with images from the camera, television, films, video games and we live vicariously through these, albeit the emotional experience is reduced and distilled taking in the positive aspects and sidestepping the devastating. They are presented to us in clean packaged boxes - we pick and choose - nothing will really touch us or affect us. As in Daniel's paintings the images are there but they are blurred, distant and ultimately out of our emotional reach.


Image Translation that Educates the Senses - The Hitchcock Paintings of Daniel Pitin
Denisa Kera, Art Margins, 2004

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Born 1977 in Prague. Studied from 1994-2001 at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the Classical Painting studio under Professor Z. Beran and the Conceptual Media studio under Professor M. Sejn. Daniel Pitin is a young and talented painter who also works in - as well as being inspired by - film and video. During his studies at the Academy, he twice received the prize for the best work of the year, was the recipient of the Henkel Art Award for artists from Cental and Eastern Europe in 2004, and in 2007 was awarded the Mattoni Prize for the best new artist work at the Prague Biennale.