_957 #155_#okcow
entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit Markéta Jáchimová
Ausstellung & Book Launch
Donnerstag, l8. Mai 2023 von 18– 21 Uhr
Redaktion, Himmelrichstrasse 4, 6003 Luzern
CHF 15.- + Versand (CH: 2.50)
The project “#okcow” is inspired by the contrast between nature and urban environment.
It draws its ideas from the surroundings of the artist‘s studio in the periphery of the urban districts in Lucerne, Switzerland.
A place where the nature meets human civilization and human civilization meets the nature.
The surroundings of the artist‘s studio are located on the outskirts of the city of Luzerne in industrial area, where forests, farms and construction companies merge into an inspiring whole. These spaces have a particular spirit: They seem to bloom with their natural beauty and traditional agro-culture by day, and by night, they become a special warehouse of building materials with geometric constructions.
The “#okcow” project illustrates how the artist sees traditional Swiss countryside.
Markéta Jáchimová is a Czech artist living and working in Lucerne, Switzerland. Her current body of work focuses on using the method of
handmade tapestries. This method consists in a special way of processing textile waste and it is based on the technique of tapestry making in Egypt, 4th century BC. The project “#okcow” is a follow-up project with camel tapestries the artist created in the local settings of the
Great Pyramid of Giza in 2021/22. Her aim is to return to the old method of traditional handmade textiles and to draw attention to the issue of textile waste and its recycling.
Jachimova‘s art production is concerned with how humans affect the ‘landscape’ and what traces their actions leave behind in this world.
It is a kind of an intercultural exchange. Through travel and stay abroad, the artist discovers places and verbalizing them through her artistic tapestries, photographs, objects or performances.
Markéta Jáchimová is interested in the contrast between the natural expressions of nature and the bizarre expressions of human consumer society. The project with cows wearing a tapestry plays with the idea of a living art object in a natural environment. The piece of art is tailored to the animal wearing the object, with the animal consequently becoming part of the artwork.
The artistic composition with tapestries and corrugated roofing is supported by black and white ornaments appearing naturally on cow fur.
The choice of colors including blue, white, black and yellow is characteristic of Markéta Jáchimová‘s work. The tapestry series in particular is inspired by water surface and its ripples. The artist herself says the abstraction depicted in the paintings is more like the feeling of being swept away by a wave and rolling in its tunnel until it washes you up on the shore of the ocean. It is a kind of an anagram of human lust, wallowing in the idea of success regardless of the outside world.
The art work is a collage of materials. It is supported by raw corrugated material appears frequently in her work. This material mimics the ripples of water and not only as a roofing material associated with artists childhood on the construction site, it also has a strong visual overlap of
alternating vertical lines in black and white shadows. It‘s a kind of play with the contrast between materials and its meaning and associations.
The spotted cows relaxing in the pasture with art works, becoming a kind of a gallery under the open sky. The artist crosses boundary between the traditionally presented visual art at the gallery and a performance in a open space. The way in which the cows react to the artwork implies a fusion of two incompatible worlds. Can a cow understand what art is? it is not the absurdity that clashes with the actions of the man himself?
The title of the project is inspired by the hashtag the artist uses to comment on bizarre human actions on social media.
“#okcow” is in turn a placeholder name representing a kind of nonsense and the artist‘s specific sense of humour.