One day I asked my good friend,
Stephen Pierce
from the U.S., for a little favor. I needed a few lines to describe my work for an exhibition in Prague. I was also interested in seeing someone else's interpretation of my art and the letter he sent back really took my breath away.
I don't think I could have found better words myself, especially since English is only a second language for me, and I'd like to share them with you:
Martin Stranka's work exists in that space between dreams and waking, those split seconds when a person has a foot in both worlds. Light like the first rays of twilight filtering through a curtain when even the dust seems to glitter with some sort of hidden purpose or meaning.
The language of stillness.
The solitary sound of your own footsteps echoing down the streets of a deserted city. And on every building the flickering image of a silent film like faded memories.
His images.
So personal yet somehow universal they seem like your own memories. Your moments.
And maybe they are...
I believe we all know the moment, when we wake up early every morning, the bell is ringing and you dont know if is it real or still a dream. Its really just a short time, when your mind is confused and thinking: Am I dreaming, or is that my hated alarm clock? These few seconds are so incredible and amazing. Even though we have experienced these moments many times, even though we have find it so familiar to us, we are still always confused by these few seconds. That is what I try to put into my art. I want the viewer to ask: Am I dreaming?
Then try to imagine an early evening sunset. The last rays of sunlight. Everything is suffused into orangish shades. Light is coming through your curtain. You can even see the particles of dust slowly floating through your room. Thats the magic moment. Light. The most powerful tool for an artist.
I use many synonyms for stillness in my titles. Serenity. Tranquility. I'm not exactly sure why I find myself using this imagery. I live in a loud capital city. I listen to loud music. I work in a noisy job. Perhaps that's the answer, why I run into my calm, inner world. Stillness, it gives me a place where I can decipher my thoughts, read my own mind. A place where I understand all the pictures in my head.
Many people have asked if I am involved in films because my pictures seem like movie scenes. As if they were cut from a film. They look like our own faded memories. Something what we all have lived through. My other imagination. My other dream.
Have you ever had a feeling that somehow you have seen that scene already? Do you find these moments somehow familiar? Deja vu? We are all human and we all live in the same world, true. The same physical world but at the same time a different inner world. When I take photographs, I try to materialize my thoughts and dreams into the conscious state. Many people tell me they have found themselves in these pictures. They say it feels strangely familiar. Photographs as mirrors? Yes, they should be a mirror of our souls, dreams, reality.
And maybe they are... just usual things at unusual moments. So personal yet somehow universal they seem like your own memories. Your moments.