At first glance, Houdek’s paintings resemble geometric ornaments. One sees circles, rectangles, ellipses, diamonds, and folds that come together in ever-new surprising combinations. At the beginning of his work around 2012, the artist referred to certain prototypes that one encounters in the classics of modern art, like Malevich, Kupka or Mondrian. Increasingly, ‘real-life’ objects such as loops, opened accordion books, shelves, and similar forms appeared, which lend the flat pictures a spatial, three-dimensional effect. These objects then no longer appear as abstract figures but rather as ‘surreal’ objects floating in space. The many air wheels and rotating discs also figure similarly in Houdek’s paintings. They recall shells, rotors of turbines, or strange airplanes. Others, by contrast, are reminiscent of open books or registers.
Houdek works with classical oil and acrylic painting, combining these two techniques and combining them with collages. He destroys what he has achieved with his palette knife and then applies new layers of color which he then destroys again. In these, he sees “mementos and torsi of previous attempts”, for him, a permanent method of self-control and innovation. The haptic dimension of Houdek’s paintings is remarkable. The artist uses his palette knife to work, to push the oil paint so that it extends over the edges of the wedged frame where it hardens. This corona gives the two-dimensional paintings a material, object-like character – they are both abstract and concrete. (Text: Zdenek Felix)
The works of Houdek have been shown in various art venues across Europe.
