Go to Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

 

Critics Reviews

Malcom Preston, New York Newsday, October 2, 1979

"Colini's canvases are smoothly painted and well designed. Color is used sparingly but most effectively. Accurate in every detail of costume and armor, Colini paints the "Droll Infantry" in the garb of jesters...the meticulously painted egg temperas have a certain old world European charm. They stand aside from the stream of contemporary art and by their difference enchant us. With super clarity Colini's pictures reveal an unreal universe."

Allentown Morning Call, May 8, 1988

"Colini's delicate egg temperas which are exactingly drawn and painted on masonite with a highly polished surface achieved by many glazes in a 16th century technique are technically outstanding."

The Southampton Press, July 1, 1993

"Vojen Cech-Colini, formerly of Czechoslovakia, makes egg tempera pictures that combine the formal look of the Old Masters with the subject matter of a magic realist. The pictures present scenarios that often make oblique references to the Middle Ages, to myth, to fairy tales, but the myths and tales seem to have sprung from the artist's imagination. "

"In Imperator Rudolfus Secundus Divinus the eponymous figure, in black tights, black shoes with gold buckles and a lace collar, and holding a gold candlestick, descends marble steps looking gloomily over the viewer's shoulder while a small, stylized white cat meows at him. Two small orange suns hang in the sky in the distance. It's rather as if Edward Gorey had studied with Holbein."

Donald Miller, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, June 1, 1996

"You may feel as perplexed by the fantastic paintings of Colini, the Bohemian-born Vojen Wilhelm Cech, as when you are looking at those by Salvador Dali. Even though it is impossible to know exactly what Colini means to convey, his jewel like precision and curious Old World scenes and costumes call up our own hidden thoughts.

Colini, a witty 72, lives with his wife in Allentown and does not divulge his meanings. but it is evident from his words at last Friday's opening of his exhibition at International Images ltd. in Sewickley that he really enjoys creating visual conundrums.

He is not a surrealist with imagery derived from dreams, but a fantasist who plays with the twist and turns of history, religion, sex and memory.

The irony is that while each work is a marvel of precious orderliness and color-blending, the subjects are eccentric and unique. The paintings require viewer attention for the fullest appreciation.

The outstanding paintings among the more than 40 suggest odd views of history, such as The Miracle of Green Fire, 1977 with knights in strange but accurate armor; King of Thule, 1987 in which a goat's body has a human skull surmounted by a meticulously jeweled crown; and Miracles of German Technology where an 18th century man gesticulates beneath grotesque airships.

Hot Cats a series of scantily clad women, is all too contemporary but related to mythic views of roosters and animals behaving erotically.

In fantasy the artist is king: The world is as he portrays it."