About Renata Retrová

I am an international contemporary Fine Artist specialising in exceptional semi-abstract seascape/landscape paintings and also unique portraiture. The two themes are very different in mood and style, but both are made from using a mix of traditional techniques and more unconventional painting methods. Both rely on drawing from memory to create finished work that is abstracted and more expressional than representational. I endeavour to generate a sense of intimacy and isolation while leaving the subject open to interpretation.

Early influences are Cy Twombly, Robert Motherwell, Milton Avery, Vermeer, Turner and Rembrandt. Elements of all have been introduced into my work. With Rembrandt it was the backgrounds allowing the paintings to emerge from dark to light. Turners handling of atmosphere which lived in the paintings, and the gestural from Twombly and Motherwell.

However before any of this starts the painting surface has to be right. I prime any surface many times to build up layers of primer that hide canvas weave and produce a substantial surface that will take hold of the marks I make but allow the free movement of paint when necessary.

Layers are built up of thin glazes of a usually limited palette. The primed base colours are then allowed to influence the top glazes, or are completely obliterated only to be revealed again as layers are then sanded back or drawn through whilst still wet. At some point the painting process inevitably takes over and starts to generate the paintings subsequent direction. Original elements can then be re introduced to the work.

It has been my aim to create work that is most definitely a painting; accomplished by using rich textures, multiple layers, poured paint and brush/palette knife marks. This becomes a way of escaping the everyday, mass produced visuals that we are constantly exposed to and the way in which we now digest and assimilate our visual world.