Last Call
 Martin Kyrych

Martin Kyrych (1985), graduated from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the studio of Painting II under the guidance of Vladimír Skrepl. Kyrych primarily works in the mediums of painting, comics, and illustration. Kyrych’s visual language is influenced by German Neo-Expressionism of the 1980s and animated film. Kyrych’s practice reflects both the world around him and contemporary social issues with a distinctive grotesque cynicism. He has exhibited at Studio PRÁM, Gallery XY, and Gallery Jelení, among others. Currently, in addition to the exhibition “Last Call” at Kulturák Archa, you can also see his work in a group exhibition at Kurzor Gallery in Prague.

Think of the Last Call exhibition as comic book snippets. A comic about the mythical Gaia. Life on Gaia is exposed to extreme temperatures caused by its inhabitants. Under the pressure of the temperatures, all living and non-living things dissolve. Life turns into an unpleasant brownish liquid that carries the living away. The inhabitants of Gaia, torn by constant warfare, turn everything into death. Both the death of the gaijin and of Gaia itself. In Greek mythology, Atlas was a titan who carried the weight of the world (Gaia) on his shoulders, an act bestowed upon him by Zeus. Atlas was punished for leading the titans into battle against the Olympian gods in order to gain control of the heavens and earth. Ironically, Atlas was given the punishment of carrying on his back what he wanted to control and conquer.

curator: Adam Smrekovský But in the end, some power remained to him, not the factual power he had on Olympus, but the power that Gaia could always drop and damn without a second thought. He didn’t do that though, he felt a duty to Gaia’s future. In our comic, that’s not enough. The fluid that flows from Gaia is so hot and unpleasant that even the titan Atlas can’t hold it back any longer. Under the weight of the pain, I’ll have to drop Gaia at some point.