Harriet Daniels

Creating a new breed of painting Bedriska Uzdilova’s work invites viewers to a world full of vibrant colors and mysterious visages. While the Prague born artist’s paintings have the swirling energy of many abstract works, they also suggest something quite different: the murmuring of numerous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is seldom truly abstract. She courageously goes beyond the given and familiar, pioneering new techniques and materials in order to expand her own vision. Uzdilova gracefully incorporates picturesque elements into her paintings. The result is a representation that is dreamy, capricious, and out of this world. Uzdilova’s dreamscapes are endearing and mesmerizing, and emerge out of a place where fantasy and reality intersect. Her inspiration, comes from life-experiences, each like a story, are a testimony of her observation and of the feelings evoked by the scenery or characters she comes across.

The imagery is personal and objective at the same time, rendering viewers ready to relate to what they see. Whether it’s the sea, a pasture, a crowded bar, a marketplace, or a vibrant still life, Uzdilova’s manages to encapsulate a moment that is dramatic and moving. The multitude of her subjects is overwhelming, the richness of her palettes astounding, owing to her ability to segue between figurative elements and Abstraction. Pub, 1998 is an endless meadow flourishingly green, aquamarine and yellow. In other works, layers of fuchsia, purple, blue, red, and gold, deep and light, transport viewers to a dimension that seems far yet near, where they are closest to nature, with their bare eyes and hearts. The importance of compositional structure, of movement, and of the permanent interaction of colors, is the thread linking Uzdilova’s together. Indeed, color is a signature of her work, and signifies a new confidence and maturity in the artist’s handling of paint and evocation of her subjects. Uzdilova’s ambition for painting as a carrier of meanings that are accessible to all is evidence of her own immersion in the culture of painting and its potential for transformation.