Jiří Pitrmuc

Jiri Pitrmuc received his MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague where he studied in the Intermedia studio (Pavla Scerankova, Dusan Zahoransky) between 2017 - 2020. Before that he studied at the Faculty of art and design at JEPU in the Performance studio of Jiri Kovanda (2013 - 2017). During his studies, he attended a study stay at the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels (Project studio) and at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (Sculpture studio). Since the beginning of 2023 he has been teaching and working as a studio assistant in Object-space-action studio at the Faculty of art and Design at JEPU and become a member of the Skutek association which tries to set fair conditions for cultural workers in Czechia.

He presented his work in solo exhibitions in Stone projects Gallery (Prague), Jeleni Gallery (Prague) or the Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Kralove where he is also represented in a permanent collection. Among others, his work was part of group exhibitions in the Museum of Fine Arts, Split, House of Art in Usti nad Labem, Czech Center in Berlin, and others.

No Stick but Flick

The dissertation examines contemporary painting in the tension between irony and sincerity. Unlike postmodern irony, which manifests as a distancing gesture, post-irony allows for a sincere interest in craft and material rather than deskilling. The central question is how the material process of painting generates a post-ironic tension in which irony and sincerity, distance and emotional engagement, are not mutually exclusive.

The painting process is approached as a collaboration with material, in which agency belongs not only to the painter but to all actors involved in the process. Related questions concern the emotionality of painting, its effect on both the artist and the audience, and the criteria for evaluating it within the non-linear development of art. The method is research-creation, i.e. sustained studio practice and experimentation with the materiality of painting in dialogue with theoretical reflection.