TOMAS LAHODA

DEER PAINTINGS

U bent van harte uitgenodigd op de opening van de tentoonstelling

Kindly invites you at the exhibition

Inleiding door Dirk Pauwels (Dir. Kunstencentrum CAMPO)

Opening by Dirk Pauwels (Dir. Kunstencentrum CAMPO)

op vrijdag 6 mei 2011 om 20 u

on Friday 6 may 2011 8 pm

De tentoonstelling loopt van 6 tot 28 mei 2011

Open: w.t.f.s. 3 pm till 6 pm and on appointment

Exhibition from 6 till 28 may 2011

Matinees: open zondag 15 mei

Galerie S & H. DE BUCK

Deer painting series

The large paintings with the title Deer paintings are part of a long term project of Tomas Lahoda called „After“. Here, the starting point of departure for different series of paintings is the work of nonartists, people who are not in any way artistically educated nor have the aspirations to be artists. Often, they are even members of Tomas Lahoda´s family. Besides Deer paintings, there are other series that could be mentioned as being created under the cover of the After project: Ikebama series (the paintings painted by Tomas Lahoda after his own small drawings after photographs from a book of Ikebana when he was a child - the title beholds the wrong spelling from one of the childish drawings), Models (abstract paintings after the scribblings of his little baby daughter), Portraits (paintings after an album full of cut outs of the richest people in the world from newspapers and magazines, collected by a teenage girl, one of Lahoda´s far relatives), Ad paintings (paintings created as a cooperation with his little daughter on the theme of perfume advertisments), Last Monet paintings (painted after mediocre quality black and white book reproductions of Monet´s paintings) or Book paintings (painted after Wittgenstein´s quotations). All these series also reflect classical themes and genderes such as landscape painting, still-life, portraiture, flower painting, abstract expresionism etc. and the question of the possibilities of reworking them.

The series Deer paintings has two initial inspirations. First, there was the interest in reflecting the old theme of a roaring stag and transforming this prototype of a kitsch into a series of large format, beautiful, representational paintings. The second was a collection of Lahoda´s uncle Leonid´s photographs. He, as a proffesional huntsman and gamekeeper was also an eager amateur photographer taking pictures of stags, deer, wild pigs, and other wild animals of the forest while wandering through his hunting-ground.

One of the most famous paintings of the 19th century was the painting of a grand stag on the background of high scottish mountains with the title The Monarch of the Glen. It was painted in the year 1851 by an english painter, Sir Erwin Landseer, commissioned as part of a series of three panels to hang in the Refreshment Rooms of the House of Lords. Today, this picture is still reproduced on a number of products. Among others, the image became a trade mark of the scotch whisky Dewar´s, which, by the way, uncle Leonid loved to drink on festive occasions. The painting signified both mythic Scotland and high culture, perfectly embodying the necessary associations for Dewar’s. Prints of the painting became common in pubs. Through these reproductions the image was further disseminated, and further dissociated with the world of fine art. Dewar’s, however, was not the only whisky to use the Monarch of the Glen as its logo. The image of the stag was especially apt for Glenfiddich distillery, whose name comes from the Gaelic for “valley of the deer.” The stag image remains the logo and advertising identity of Glenfiddich, and has appeared on bottles, decanters, water jugs, print ads, key-chains, glasses, mirrors, bar mats and even a recent television ad campaign. The company claims the stag image embodies their latest tagline, “the independent spirit,” a pun referring to the whisky itself as well as “the continued family ownership of the brand.”

In the United States The Monarch of the Glen was further disseminated by yet another corporation, the Hartford Fire Insurance Company. Starting in 1861, a mere ten years after the painting’s completion, the Hartford began using a stag as its logo. The original design, while based upon Landseer’s Monarch, depicted the stag by a stream, creating a visual pun on the words ‘hart; and ‘ford.’ Divorced from any initial meanings regarding the Scottish nation or Victorian rule, the stag now came to represent strength, reliability and trustworthiness. As their British counterparts had, the Hartford used popular interest in prints as a marketing tool. In 1890 the John A. Lowell Company was hired to create a steel engraving of Landseer’s painting, which was distributed across the country. Throughout the years since the Hartford has used the image in countless ways. In addition to the Lowell Company’s engraving, the image has appeared on signs, plaques, cufflinks, pendants, children’s badges, and modernised posters, all serving the Hartford’s brand. Beginning in 1974 the company even used the image in television ads with a trained elk named Lawrence wandering through the commercials, while an announcer discussed the company. At the end of the ad, Lawrence struck the familiar pose of the original painting and then morphed into the company’s logo. This new meaning, strength, reliability and trustworthiness, was apparently widespread in America. The image appeared in other corporate logos, as if to certify that a product was of high quality. Most interesting of all, little over a decade after the painting’s completion, the Monarch appears on currency. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln convinced Congress to pass the National Banking Act, establishing a National banking system. These banks were to issue their own US paper currency, with US government securities backing the notes. At least two such banks, the Bank of Michigan and Allen’s College Bank in Pennsylvania, issued notes which featured an engraving of the Monarch of the Glen, distributing its likeness more widely than ever before.

The Monarch of the Glen has become a free-floating sign, which can be attached to any referent, from nations, to whisky, to fire insurance and currency, and whose continued popularity may stem from both its strength as an image and its malleability as a symbol.

However, the image of a roaring stag became to represent a prototype of a gender painting in the 19th century. The image became one of the most reproduced, popular mass clichés, just to be regarded as an embodyment of kitsch in the era of modernism.

This traditional motif expressing the urge for and nostalgia after beeing united with nature is in Lahoda´s series transformed and recycled into elegant saloon paintings with a fleur of pop art. In the Deer painting series, there are hidden references to classical academic painting, as well as to some iconic styles and expressoins of both old and modern art.

In the paintings with huge details of tree trunks in the foreground, two readings are possible. The stylized patterns of the bark of the birch tree in the foreground in a number of paintings can be seen as chineese ink paintings of landscapes with mountains scattered over empty spaces of fog and water with small blotches resembling sail boats.

In other paintings, the huge treetrunks appropriates the large paintings of Clyfford Still. A reminder that a gestural abstract expressionism has become another kind of contemporary mass clichés.

Fotokabinet:Jan Van Den Abbeel invites Meltem Elmas with "Dreams"

Zuidstationstraat 25 9000 Gent Tel.0032/09/225 10 81

E: sdebuckskynet.be I: www.siegfrieddebuck.be/galerie

Siegfried De Buck: Deelname tentoonstelling: Pôle bijoux Baccarat (Fr) tot mei 2011, Museum Sterckshof Hammerclub, tentoonstelling Recycling

Permanent: hedendaagse juwelen en zilveren ontwerpen van zijn hand bij Galerie S&H DE BUCK

Stefaan Van Biesen: werd genomineerd voor de Grand Prix fotofestival 2011 met Geist Lodz Polen.

Geert De Smet: Beeldend werk Film Boris Kuijpers /concept Honingman expo: Tweebronnen Rijschoolstraat 4 3000 Leuven 25/03/2011 tot 01/05/2011

Galerie S&H DE BUCK Zuidstationstraat 25 9000 Gent (B) 0032/09/225 10 81  www.siegfrieddebuck.be/galerie

Open: w.d.v.z.: 15 u tot 18 u en op afspraak.