Artist Statement
Filip Lav’s artistic practice intertwines evocative elements of 19th-century romanticism with the fragmented geometry of modernist abstraction. His paintings juxtapose the symbolic legacy of romanticism with the cubist language of minimal abstraction. Often, the foregrounds are painted in a floating symbolic dreamworld that spans across multiple canvases, casting various mythological characters, from vampires to spirits and angels. These mythological figures play a significant role in Lav’s inner landscapes, viewed as the visual inheritance of 19th-century dark romanticism, standing in contrast to the fragmented modernist structures of the paintings’ outlines.
Each composition comprises multiple combined rectangular canvases that often evoke a cascading crucifix form. Initially sourced from different works or painted apart from one another, these parts come together in unexpected combinations, where fragments of diverse identities intersect, creating a charged quality.
These painterly grounds serve as seedbeds that spark the formation of vines, flowers, and geometric patterns layered on top. Lav’s brush marks range from energetic, hazy impasto in warm earth tones to ethereal glazing of figures and patterns in grey and gold. The palette echoes the heavy body of early modernist abstraction, while the translucency atop references the intangible anti-materialism of the Viennese Secessionist painters.
