Karel Funk
KAREL FUNK | THE NEW YORK TIMES
What to See in New York City Art Galleries This Week
3 AUGUST 2017
Untitled #85, 2017, Acrylic on panel.
Image courtesy of the artist and 303 Gallery.
There is much to look at, and think about, besides this disruption of the viewer’s dominion, including the smooth, knowing perfection of the garments and their high-tech designs; the additions of rougher textures, like Velcro strips and nylon straps; the tiny stitches of their welted seams; and their effulgent colors of yellow, green, red and purple. But each color is set in motion by the quietly unruly topography of creases, sags and folds, and further subdivided by light into a tremendous variety of tones and hues. There is something of the grandeur of landscapes, even mountains or peaks. The dark concave side of a gray hood might almost be a landslide. Finally, there is the conscientious, intimate care with which Mr. Funk achieves this level of realism. Like his subjects, he is unseen, but we feel the intensity of both, along with our own.
- Roberta Smith and Will Heinrich
Untitled #84, 2017, Acrylic on panel.
Image courtesy of the artist and 303 Gallery.
Karel Funk’s oil paintings remain unwavering in their concentration on well-made outerwear. At 303 Gallery, in his first gallery show in New York since 2010, Mr. Funk continues to meticulously render the heads and shoulders of subjects who have their backs to the viewer and are wearing bright nylon parkas with the hoods up, silhouetted against white. They are, in other words, complete mysteries, their distance intensified because the hoods evoke monks’ or nuns’ habits. As always, Mr. Funk’s art has an undercurrent of religious devotion, maybe even a touch of the medieval.
Our lack of connection to the sitters is strange yet liberating for all concerned. They are cloistered, not displayed for the delectation of either painter or viewer. We, too, are slightly disembodied, free to examine these faceless yet somehow individualized portraits unwatched. Though, in the palpable silence, these figures might be listening, like confessors awaiting our revelations.