Ivo Křen

Ivo Křen (6 February 1964 – 9 May 2020) was a Czech graphic artist, art glass theoretician and curator.

After graduating from grammar school in Pardubice (1979–82) Ivo Křen studied art education and Czech language at the Faculty of Pedagogics, University of Hradec Králové, under Prof. Bořivoj Borovský.

His first linocuts (1988) were illustrations for Vladimír Holan's poetic composition A Night with Hamlet, where in his figurative compositions he made use of raw unpolishedness, hatching, dramatic contrast of black and white lines and massive dark surfaces.

However, he soon began to explore the technical possibilities of this graphic technique - from the illusion of volume by engraved lines and textures, through flat and monochromatic shapes, to the possibility of creating pasty chiaroscuro layers in print with subsurface transparencies of colour that emerge from the surface as a perceptible relief element.

He mastered the technique of multi-coloured linocut, where colour is a carrier of meaning and part of the expression of all sensory perceptions and emotional connections.

Linocut allows him a sweeping gesture of colour and the alternation of surfaces with minute details of structures, blending monumentality with fragility.

The lengthy process of engraving on a large format matrix allows for a contemplative approach to the work and a continuous transformation of the original motif in the creative process as well as an exploration of new technical possibilities of expression.

He briefly worked as a teacher and then worked at the East Bohemian Gallery and since 1989 at the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice.

He was a member of the Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar, the Rubikon art group and the Academy of Design of the Czech Republic.

In the early 1990s, with the transition to multi-coloured prints, his interest gradually shifted from figurative work to natural compositions of rocks, walls and labyrinths or interior details, where he explored the possibilities of perspective and image depth or the effect of lights and shadows.

The compositions are generously conceived, devoid of details, with a clear emotional charge.

The second half of the 1990s is characterised by a painterly approach to reality, flat expressive colour and fine details, the combination of many hues of a single colour in the resulting juxtaposition and a transition to abstracted forms.

A frequent motif is the intimate recesses of gardens, in a figurative sense the recesses of the soul, the mystery of the unknowable and an expression of the subjective search for balance and order.

As a graphic designer Ivo Křen was involved in the creation of posters and typographic design of book publications of the Rubikon Group and some small occasional prints.

"It's worth to me to be amazed and be charmed by trivia. To seek, to observe, to surprise and to entertain myself. To enjoy the fact that many things, formerly completely overlooked in the headlong rush for the ever new and strange, still remain ready to be discovered."

He has exhibited independently since 1991 and presented his graphic works at many joint exhibitions around the world.

He was associated with the graphic artists of the middle generation of the Association of Czech Graphic Artists HOLLAR in Prague and received awards for his work using a multi-coloured linocut technique.

As the organizer of the permanent exhibition Czech Glass of the 20th Century and curator of the art and industrial collections of the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice (1992), he managed the collection of studio glass.

He worked as an art glass theoretician.

Ivo Křen was a founding member, curator of exhibitions and author of texts of Rubikon Group (1998), a group of prominent Czech glassmakers.

With the Rubikon group, he has presented his work in Germany, Austria, Iceland, France, Belgium and Italy.

Ivo Křen lived and worked in Pardubice.

Ivo Křen's graphic work specialised in the linocut technique, which since 2008 he sometimes combined with a monotype base.

He died on 9 May 2020 at the age of 56.