Marek Meduna was born in Prague in 1973. His boundless imagination allows him to seek and find inspiration wherever he pleases. As such, this constant thematic and aesthetic stimulation leads to an appropriative art style, where everything is subverted, reused, manipulated and repurposed.
Although often associated with pop art due to the commercial borrowings his corpus features, caricature is perhaps a better categorisation of his work. Indeed, political, societal and overall ‘current’ subjects find their distorted way into his creations, in a manner akin to that of caricature and satirical drawings. Figuration underlines the ambivalent disorienting impact of images. Extremely sexualised, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, obscene and generally clichéd motifs oscillate in between repulsion and fascination. The feeling of aversion, yet the impossibility of averting one’s eyes, is further accelerated with the depiction of visceral body parts, excrement, genitals, warts and other repugnant elements. The use of onomatopoeia and other visualised sound effects is a nod to western comics, from which he borrows extensively.
Meduna’s paintings are therefore a simultaneous accusation and conviction of the viewer of voyeurism and vulturism. His work is a contract: the spectator accepts that they will be taken on a visual journey without truly knowing where it begins or ends.
Meduna’s most recent solo exhibitions include:
Everything Was For Free, SVIT, Prague (2014); Artefacts (with Radim Langer), NoD, Prague (2014); Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, NF Gallery, Ústí nad Labem (2014); Between Thieves of Dogs, Fait Gallery, Brno (2013); Bakala, Municipal Gallery Třinec, Třinec (2013); Berg (with Radim Langer), Školská 28, Prague (2013); Trace in mud, SPZ Gallery, Prague (2012); Galapagos / Germinal, Galeria Stereo, Poznan (2012); Marek Meduna, Alexander Wolff, SVIT, Prague (2011); Sand, 207 Gallery, Prague (2010); Equilateral Triangle (with P. Kratky and P. Malina), MeetFactory Gallery, Prague (2010); After Velvet (with Dominik Lang), City Gallery, Prague (2009); Constipation – Diarrhoea, 36 Gallery, Olomouc (2009); Contemporary improvisation, open archives, cold supper, Dole Gallery, Ostrava (2008); Baffled father and the century of the woman, Moravian Gallery, Brno (2008); River, Municipal Gallery, Blansko (2008); Programme (with Andrea Součková), Jelení Gallery, Prague (2007); Variant, Louvre Kavárny Gallery, Prague (2007).
Meduna lives and works in Prague.
