The beauty of mortality (2024) Malerei von Miloš Hronec

A series of portraits created over a period of approximately one year. As my life changed, so did my artistic expression.

These artworks unplanned capture my natural development and transition. They create a peculiar mix of portraits and feelings.

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The canvas is signed from the back.
Lacquered with non-yellowing varnish.

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*Who am I?*

I am a member of a 2.8 million year old species that calls itself: Homo sapiens sapiens. I am an individual on a 4.5 billion year old planet, somewhere deep in the approximately 13.7 billion year old universe.

I am the most important and at the same time completely unimportant.
For the universe I am nothing, for myself the entire universe.

Self as an entity, consciousness constructed by physical form and influenced by its overall physiological makeup.
Me as an individual, located here and at this moment, shaped by family and social background, life experiences and the time in which I exist.

I am the universe, a part of it, a temporary cluster of energy that I can manipulate. Using it to influence yourself, your surroundings, and thus the universe itself.

I am an individual. Existing now, alive in this moment.
Aware of one's self, one's presence and one's own mortality.



*Awareness of one's own mortality*

Not looking at humanity as a whole, each individual tries to find his own happiness.
In the sequence of events, which he can either completely or only to a small extent influence with his decisions, up to circumstances over which he has no influence at all.

I consider mortality to be key in human thinking. Although the awareness of one's own death is repressed for logical reasons in everyday life, it is a constantly present fact that accompanies us all the time.
Whether a person dedicates his life to faith, work, family, experiencing joy and pleasure, or wishes to leave something behind, it is precisely the constant presence of finitude that is the hidden spice of life.

A person mostly tries to fill his life with work, contribution to society, experiences, upbringing of offspring and ties with other people. He longs for love, recognition, knowledge, that is, for a fulfilling life.
In this process, whether successful, partially successful, or outright unsuccessful, he is the recipient of various feelings and experiences throughout his life.

I consider this very moment, when emotions enter a person, to be the moment when a person experiences life the most. It is thus the most alive and "most exists" for itself.
For these reasons, I focused on this moment in my paintings.

Kierkegaard came to the idea that we cannot fit the personal experience of our own life into any universally applicable system, and every human life, every human existence is highly individual.

Likewise, I consider every single situation in life to be individual. At a given moment, everything in the universe is as it is, but in just a small moment, countless things are completely different.

I capture only a single moment from this time in the picture. Negligible, random, and yet essential for the given individual, because at that moment he is alive, has self-awareness and proves his existence to himself.
Now I feel, so now I am.

Realizing that all moments are only once and can never be repeated in any way gives them a wonderful flavor.



*The existence of an individual without the context of space and time*

The series of paintings I am working on depict human figures in different positions and different mental states.
The main motif of the paintings is man as such. His feelings, thought processes, crises, joys or needs.


The figures in the paintings have clothes indicated either very vaguely, or they don't have any. But not because the primary topic is human sexuality.
Moreover, the background behind the characters is always non-specific, abstract.
The depiction of people is thus not included in any specific historical period, political situation or social status. Although these circumstances greatly affect the individual, my aim is not to examine the original impulse, but the consequence and the moment itself.
So I am interested in the current state, mental state and the human individual as such.

The paintings are expressive. I shape the human figure freely. In places I consciously distort.
Calm parts of the painting alternate with violent, gestural strokes. The slow-drying oil is later contrasted with quick-drying acrylic and spray.

Portrait paintings alternate figuratively. The image of the child alternates with the old man, next to the woman is a man. One experiences happiness, another suffers mentally.
I sometimes get almost to abstraction from less expressive characters.

I created most of the paintings intensively over a period of a year and a half. I repainted many works repeatedly, many completely erased.
During creation, my idea of what and how I want to portray gradually developed. It was a living process.
I often reflected my own crises, suffering, but also joys into the characters on the canvases.

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