artists

Michaela Thelenová

"In subject matter Michaela Thelenová's work derives almost exclusively from the ambiguous reality of the post-industrial environment of North Bohemia. The poignant intimacy of her approach is further intensified by a frequently inspiring focus on her closest vicinity, when she uses as models for her artwork sections of her househould, neighbours or family members. With such close detail, Thelenová is obsessively focusing on parts of the depressing post-communist urban landscape, overlapping the deformed social structure with the illusion of consumerist opulence, recording the remains of the German past of the region, comparing the image of nature with the human desire to change its form and recreate it, confronting the global aspect of computer networks with the fragmentariness of their concrete participants, stealthily scanning the sides of main roads where prostitutes loiter next to memorials to victims of traffic accidents. However, the author does not sift through this diverse but geographically located material with an aim to compose a clearly defined photographic documentary, or to compile a socially conscious visual message. Her artistic strategy is based on a thorough sharing of events and on creating a critical discourse, through accummulation of visual elements. The result of this approach is an emotional series of photographs consisting of individual images that are frequently not linked by any causal relationship and resist traditional logic. These pictures simply exist next to each other, and demonstrate their random congruity, they tempt the viewer to break into them so that they might become a part of him or herself."

excerpt from catalog text by Michal Koleček, 2004

Michaela Thelenová was born in 1969 in Chomutov, Northern Bohemia. She studied at the teaching faculty of J.E. Purkně University in Ústí nad Labem from 1997-1983. In 2004, she was was one of 5 finalists for the Jindřich Chalupecky Award for the most promising young Czech artists and her work is included in major public collections in the Czech Republic such at the Prague National Gallery, Moravian Gallery in Brno, Foundation and Center for Contemporary Arts-Prague and the Klenovy/Klatovy gallery in Southrn Bohemia. Since 1994 she has been the assistant professor at the Studio of Photography, Faculty of Art and Design, J. E. Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem