Head in the Cage

Jakub Tomáš (*1982) is from Jihlava in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands, whose wooded and hilly landscape is characterised by an unspoiled authenticity and unique individuality. Some of its character is reflected in his approach to painting, in which the painting tradition is strongly regarded. At the same time, this tradition is modernized through formal transformations and reflections on topics resounding in our society. He examines the composition of his canvases and constructs them in scenographic collages from paper, which give the resulting canvases a special tension of illusorily constructed scenes and flatly stylised figures, which can be seen rather as lifeless chimeras permeated by narrative content.

The space of his latest paintings is occupied by human busts trapped in tangled fibre cages with no beginning and no end. The motif of the head, which is a recurring theme in Tomáš's work, represents inanimate objects without an identity – deprived of the ability to think rationally or to experience emotion. In earlier paintings on this subject, the fibres still held an organic vegetative nature, thus, referring to Tomáš's high appreciation for nature. In recent works, however, the motif of the cage takes on the form of a more abstract, geometrically positioned structure. A characteristic feature of these paintings is the blending between the figurative and abstract, the foreground and background, the regulated and the regulator. The emphasis placed on symbolism refers to the situation of today's digital world, the result of which is ubiquitous disembodiment and dematerialisation.

Franco Bifo Berardi also warns against its negative effects in his book And: Phenomenology of the End. He blames the internet for its involvement in transforming the perception of the world into non-physical abstract entities, leading to the suppression of reality, the isolation of the human individual, and the impairment of his or her emotional sensitivity. Berardi shows that we have reached a point where we are no longer able to further process the increasing amount of virtually disseminated information and interpersonal relationships are trapped in the coded formulae of techno-linguistic machines taking the form of smartphones or screens of all sizes, destroying our sensory and emotional sensitivity.

This fact is exemplified through Tomáš's motif of a lifeless, empty head – a "form without content" – on which a rock climber is climbing. The motif of a vertically climbing figure also appears in another one of Tomáš's paintings, where the same figure is emerging through an opening from the dark underworld. The passage between these worlds is connected with the well-known interwoven fibres, which become the prison to a head lying motionless nearby. The escaping figure can be interpreted as Tomáš's personal message – that each person still has a chance to step out of the dominance of digital networks and can protect his or her own critical thinking ability and emotional sensitivity; the characteristics that the human dimensions bestow upon our existence.

Text: Barbora Ropková