Publisher's Synopsis
If we tried to imagine Pavel Ba n ka's creative life as a photograph, its inherently transient nature would probably show very soon. There would be a steady stream of portraits, staged figurative actions, spaces artificially created by the artist himself, images verging on the abstract, as wel l as landscapes and interiors with a spiritual dimension. Such an imaginary picture would then suggest a host of frameworks within which Ba n ka's work might be arranged, based on various inner and external criteria - just as the motive of the frame itself k eeps recurring throughout Ba n ka's work. A biographical angle would show that ever since his beginnings as a self - taught photographer, Ba n ka has retained his determination to search and invent, thus keeping at bay any danger of artistic stagnation, while al ways putting new approaches to the test. Within the framework of Czech photography, Ba n ka's place would be somewhere behind the founding father figure of Jan Sudek, whom he also references in his early works, and alongside Jan Svoboda, with whom he also sh ares an interest in the work of renowned Czech glass and jewellery artists. In Ba n ka's nudes and some of the portraits, we can also find traces of another giant of Czech photography, Franti š ek Drtikol. Just as with Drtikol, Ba n ka's main objective is not cr eating a mere image of the subject, but rather constructing a photographic picture, where the photographed figure or face act only as a fully integrated, yet at the same time provocative, part of the w
