Ivana Lomová

In her exhibition "Cafés" at Galerie České pojišťovny, Ivana Lomová is showing nine large oil paintings whose action takes place in several of Prague's storied coffeehouses. "Action" is a bit of a misnomer, however, since most of the paintings exist in temporal interstices - they show the stillness between movements, the lulls in conversation and each one has a strongly existential atmosphere and offers hints of secret personal narratives concealed beneath a calm surface and leaving the viewer to complete the stories.

Aided by photographs, Lomová renders her oil paintings in an accomplished realistic manner. She doesn't simply reproduce in paint what she had previously captured on film but subtly alters the scene, transforming ordinary reality into intriguing glimmers of human stories. Selective omissions and additions heighten the tension and imbue each picture with personal and universal meaning. The result is a photographic objectivity and the artist's subjective point of view.

Subject matter is of primary importance for this artist. Lomová typically works in cycles, and her themes most often center on family, childhood and relationships. Individual paintings are linked in various ways, and there are also common threads tying Lomová's different cycles of paintings into an integral body of work: nearly empty rooms, people gazing out windows, people consumed by their own thoughts, a sense of solitude.

Each of the nine paintings in the show includes a café interior and a view to the city outside, seen through large windows. Café patrons are the interface between interior and exterior space, and are often pictured gazing out the window. The windows are used as a framing device, and often the scenes are like cinematic stills, presenting frozen fragments of narrative. The "Cafés" series in particular calls to mind the sense of isolation in the paintings of the American artist Edward Hopper.

In My Hometown, a young woman wearing a pink pashmina and long gloves stares out the window of Café Slavia as a No. 18 tram rumbles past. The expression on the woman's face suggests she is pondering some quandary. She is seated between two windows, and a tram car is visible in each window with the face of one male passenger in each car in focus. The woman seems to be looking at the oncoming passenger while the passenger in the car that has already passed is glancing back in her direction. The formal handling of the painting suggests a story of romantic dilemma, a reckoning of the past and the present or future.

Švanda Café likewise shows a desolate place, just one man sitting alone at a table staring at a laptop computer. It is winter, and small patches of snow are visible on the sidewalk. The roof of one of four cars is covered in snow, evidently having returned from a weekend trip to the mountains while the other cars remained in the city. A woman walking down the street looks skyward, holding a cigarette in her right hand while her cane seems to support itself on that same side (she has apparently stuck it into a mound of snow to have a smoke) - such details bring a strong sense of Prague city life to the painting. The café decor - a line of tumbling and stumbling painted silhouettes together with a group of black-and-white theatrical stills hanging above them on the wall - assume a symbolic function in the hazy narrative.

Slavia, set in the landmark café, shows the place in the improbable state of near emptiness. At the far right of the picture, one patron sits at a table (the other part of the table is outside the frame, so it's not certain if alone or not), looking past the National Theater toward the river. On the far left, a waiter stands holding his black wallet, looking out a different window. The sidewalks are devoid of people; there is only a white van going past the central window. The absolute stillness of the café, the absence of people outside and the lack of Coca-Cola logos on the windows, for example, all lend timelessness to the scene but also overtly move it into the realm of fiction.

In the painting Lovers, a white-haired man sits across from a woman in a more populated café, gesturing with one hand and resting his other hand on hers on the table. There are no glasses or cups visible, and the sugar dispenser has been placed inside the ashtray and pushed aside. A No. 9 tram approaches through the snowy city streets. The interior takes up two-thirds of the picture and is very dark, the winter sun highlighting only the man's hair, the woman's white turtleneck shirt, their fingertips and small portions of their faces (as well as the ears of the man at the next table).

In Winter, an older woman animatedly expresses herself to a companion with hand gestures. A handbag sits unwatched on a chair at the next table, which is not occupied, indicating a high level of trust. Petřín Hill is visible through the café window.

Even in paintings such as Lovers and Winter, in which at least a modicum of communication is depicted, there is still a strong sense of alienation. Whether sitting by themselves or with others, almost all of the people are lost in thought or reverie and are ultimately alone.

Apart from all the paintings being set in cafés, the series is also connected formally with the device of identical sugar dispensers on the tables. At times, these seem to be a kind of self-portrait, a stand-in for the omnipresent observer.

These paintings present a different kind of truth than a faithful recreation of photographed reality. Lomová's pictures powerfully communicate her subjective impression of an atmosphere or a fleeting moment, the essence of a human interchange or a sense of isolation. They are not the scenes glimpsed by a passerby looking in through the windows.

Mimi Fronczak Rogers can be reached at
Features@praguepost.com