Lukáš Brezina von Hampacher

About the author

L.B.v.H. This signature is used to sign his paintings by Lukáš Brezina von Hampacher, an artist born in the grey of the North Bohemian brown coal basin into the environment of a small town under normalisation, into a (once aristocratic) family of a technician and folk artist whose works were bought as gifts for foreign visitors by the presidential office during the presidencies of Václav Havel and Václav Klaus. His ancestors came from feudal background (from the German Hambach from about the 15th century), thanks to which he is also connected to W. A. Mozart and the Prague Bertramka, his great aunt being the singer Josefina Dušková - Hampacherová, whose father was the prominent Prague physician and pharmacist Anton Adalbert Hambacher. But the reality is that in recent history many of his ancestors were miners and metallurgists in the mines and smelters of the North Bohemian Coal Basin. Therefore, he sees the world through the lens of a harsh aesthetic based on pain, ugliness, sadness, but also joy when nature defies man and takes over a space, as in the case of the wildlife on the edges of the CSA coal mine, where the author often played as a child. And then he believed that the miners from Svěrák's 1988 film of the same name were real and true, because in his world of imagination, and especially the industrial reality of the place and the utterly and brutally destroyed environment of his native Podkrušnohoří, it could not be otherwise. His mother brought him to the visual arts because he had watched her precise art work since childhood, thanks to which he knows, for example, relief drawing with wax and needle, and thus the production of traditional Easter eggs. He was taught the basics of drawing and painting by Professor Nitkulincová, to whom he says he owes his involvement in the visual arts today. His work is inspired by nature and the romantic, albeit sad, past of the landscape of his home in the Ore Mountains. He is also inspired by the universe and various cosmic bodies, as well as animals, especially birds, which he considers to be perfect creatures. His paintings are usually multi-layered and colourful, although he does not shy away from the simple contrast of a few colours. His works are rarely pure abstraction, usually containing a great deal of realism transformed by his imagination. He uses a variety of techniques to paint, but almost never brushes, instead he uses spatulas, acrylic pens, graffiti and permanent acrylic paint, and digital and screen printing. Although he attended several colleges, none of which were art schools, he has been involved in art since early childhood and collects artwork from his friends in the art community himself. He exhibits only rarely and almost always at the request of friends or family, however, it is possible to see his paintings occasionally in his native Chomutov, in Prague and sometimes at festivals.

Díla autora Lukáš Brezina von Hampacher