The acb Gallery hosts Vladimír Houdek’s (b. 1984) first solo exhibition in Hungary. However, the Czech painter is not unfamiliar to Hungarian art lovers, as he has previously participated in group exhibitions at venues such as the Trafó Gallery and the Ludwig Museum. For more than a decade, Houdek has been consistently building his uniquely abstract painting universe, which displays both expressive and geometric features. His geometric op-art is as sensually stimulating as his wild brushstrokes and surface deconstructions. Moreover, Houdek’s motifs blend elements of both the past and the future, though his focus is often on utopias. His multi-layered geometric cosmological symbols are inspired by late-Renaissance and Baroque maps, the abstraction of early 20th-century movements, and the brutalist architecture of the Eastern European region. The common denominator of Houdek’s new paintings exhibited at acb is the color yellow, with its astonishingly subtle tonal variations paying homage to Van Gogh’s sunflower still lifes.

Vladimír Houdek graduated in 2013 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in the painting class of Vladimír Skrepl. In 2012, he was awarded the Jindřich Chalupecký Prize, still the most prestigious recognition given to young Czech artists. The undivided recognition of his art is shown by the fact that since then, no other young painter in the Czech Republic has won this prize. His works can be found in the newly reorganized permanent exhibition of the National Gallery in Prague, as well as in prestigious private collections such as the Telekom Collection, Kunsthalle Praha, and the Pudil Family Collection. He has also exhibited at prestigious institutions such as the Ludwig Forum in Aachen and MNAC in Bucharest and has had solo exhibitions at the House of Arts in Brno and Plato in Ostrava.