Gynandrologie 1947

Jaroslav Serpan made this painting called ‘Gynandrologie’ with oil on canvas, and you can see how the layering of the paint and the artist’s own intuitive searching has brought it into being. I can imagine Serpan in his studio, responding to the painting's emerging forms as if in conversation, adding these fleshy pinks and reds that hint at both the erotic and grotesque. It's as if he's conjuring these strange biomorphic shapes from some primal soup. There is a tension between the controlled brushwork and the unsettling, dreamlike imagery, like an exquisite corpse playing out on the canvas. That dripping red form, how it seems to hang suspended, evokes the raw, visceral nature of the body. I can see echoes of artists like Arshile Gorky, who also worked in this vein, exploring the subconscious through fluid lines and organic shapes. Artists are always in dialogue, aren’t they? Each stroke, each choice of color, is a response to what has come before, and an invitation to those who come after. Painting is, above all, an invitation to keep looking, thinking, and feeling.