Woman Portrait Gallery #3 — June 2025
Lubomír Fiala
“Waldvilla”
For the third edition of the "Woman Portrait Gallery" at Kaffeemitte, I sought an artist from another generation to contribute a female portrait. This led me to Lubomír Fiala, born in 1949 in Plzeň.
In the context of the group show, I was interested in Fiala's perspective as an experienced craftsman and professional carpenter — as well as his choice of materials for painting.
Fiala works with wax tempera, a traditional technique in which pigments are mixed with wax and water to create a naturally luminous and durable surface. From this starting point — the rare wax tempera technique and Fiala's artistic background — I began to consider a possible connection between the materials he uses and the motifs in his paintings. His works often feature animals, plants, and recurring motifs such as trees in the wind, roosters, or monkeys. In the piece proposed for the exhibition, a female figure seamlessly blends into an organic world, intertwined with leaves, branches, and animals, as if part of a natural puzzle. And so, Fiala's work reminds me of concepts like "Mother Nature" or "Pachamama". While these qualities aren't exclusive to mothers, they are archetypically associated with them: the nurturing, elemental presence of nature itself.
This work, therefore, conveys the awareness that we all, regardless of gender, are part of nature.
In the context of the group show, I was interested in Fiala's perspective as an experienced craftsman and professional carpenter — as well as his choice of materials for painting.
Fiala works with wax tempera, a traditional technique in which pigments are mixed with wax and water to create a naturally luminous and durable surface. From this starting point — the rare wax tempera technique and Fiala's artistic background — I began to consider a possible connection between the materials he uses and the motifs in his paintings. His works often feature animals, plants, and recurring motifs such as trees in the wind, roosters, or monkeys. In the piece proposed for the exhibition, a female figure seamlessly blends into an organic world, intertwined with leaves, branches, and animals, as if part of a natural puzzle. And so, Fiala's work reminds me of concepts like "Mother Nature" or "Pachamama". While these qualities aren't exclusive to mothers, they are archetypically associated with them: the nurturing, elemental presence of nature itself.
This work, therefore, conveys the awareness that we all, regardless of gender, are part of nature.
Context
