Voka is the founder of Spontaneous Realism
If you look in a dictionary for the word spontaneous you will find definitions like, “arising from a momentary impulse without conscious reflection”, or, “not apparently contrived or manipulated: natural” or “often surprising for the surrounding environment”.
Looking at Voka’s paintings from this vantage point, makes this newly created expression a more than meaningful description of his work.
If one has the opportunity or chance to watch the painter while he is in the act of creating his work, and see – or better, experience – the immediacy , vigor and enthusiasm with which Voka creates his paintings, then this simple expression, spontaneous realism, conveys a defining emotion.
And this is exactly the moment where his art begins.
Voka’s inspirations are the everyday events of daily life, the seemingly hidden, though omnipresent.
“The motif is not the deciding factor for me, but rather my motivation behind it.”
He tries to capture with his paintings, snapshot-like, the things that touch him, whatever the reason for it might be. A small digital camera is his constant companion. Often he presses the shutter indiscriminately, without even looking through the view-finder or focusing on a particular point. These snapshots, which he prints out deliberately in black and white, hang all over in his studio. They serve as a memory aid, as a kind of inspiration, not as a template. During the act of painting he remembers a particular situation. What exactly was it that stirred his senses? An intriguing sound? A certain scent?
The basis of Voka’s artistic abilities is rooted in his longstanding creative challenge with the art of realism. This intimate knowledge combined with his technical skills and artistic talent enables him to react spontaneously to the unforeseen. Only those who know the entirety can reduce it to the essence. His creative process is not the painting of pictures but rather the forming of colors. It is for Voka like a walk through memory lane, wherein he modifies his memories, intensifies them and arranges them anew until they transform into something concrete. This could be rays of light, a group of people or an inspiring color accent in a specific location. Everything else serves only as a frame that helps accentuate the main theme. Another important element in Voka’s paintings is time. Voka’s hands are dancing so fast over the canvas that it almost seems like he puts himself under pressure. An imaginary race begins in which the thought competes with the actual act of painting. It is an interplay in which the idea is just a breath ahead of the brush stroke. “Every painting is an impulsive challenge that starts with a first idea and ends with the final brush stroke, and each brush stroke decides over victory or defeat.” What attracts Voka is the depiction of the unforeseen. He calls it also a dialogue with colors where pure chance always has a right to answer, too. “If I knew in advance how the finished painting would look, it would be too boring to paint it in the first place.”
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