Marian Volráb

Marian Volráb is a Czech glass artist, painter and university teacher.

Early life and education Marian Volráb was born in Příbram, Czechoslovakia. He comes from the family of painter and glass artist Rudolf Volráb (1933–1969) and glass and fashion designer Libuše Šilhavá. He spent his youth in the countryside in his mother's birthplace in Volenice. His father died in 1969, but Marian Volráb was strongly influenced by his work.

He completed one year of glass apprenticeship in Poděbrady and then, between 1978 and 1982, studied at the Secondary School of Glass Arts in Kamenický Šenov, where the glass engraver and author of monumental charcoal drawings, Prof. Josef Kochrda, worked. He continued his studies at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (1982–1988) in the glass studio of Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslav Svoboda.

Career From 1990 to 2008, he was an assistant professor in the glass studio of Vladimir Kopecký at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

His wife Alena Volrábová is an art historian and head of the collection of prints and drawings at the National Gallery in Prague. Volráb has been a member of Rubikon group since 2008. He lives and works in Prague, Nučice and Volenice, where he has his own studio.

Awards 2006 Coburger Glaspreiss, Honourable Mention

Work Volráb is one of the outstanding artists of the middle generation whose glass work is closely intertwined with his parallel painting work. This interrelationship takes many different forms. In the case of Marian Volráb, it is a kinship of two mutually balancing positions, which could be figuratively characterised as "darkness in glass – light in paintings". He finds inspiration in forms created by nature itself and finishes his molten or fused glass objects, similar to flowing lava, with coarse grinding disc.

Glass Despite the material nature of glass, building on the effect of translucency, internal masses, vibrancy of colour, optical play of light etc., Volráb's glass is a world of dark corners, impenetrable walls of shapes, stripped of all effects of vitreousness. Its role lies in the secondary contexts and semantic subtexts of the perception of the essence of this contradiction-filled material and proves that the power of expression in glass does not necessarily depend on its spectacular external form.

His first realisations in glass in the 1980s were simple sets of utility glass of uncomplicated shapes. Very soon, however, he applied painting and engraving to the utility shapes of glass. The coloured and engraved compositions eventually became dominant and subjugating the expression of the object, the vessels became sculptural objects telling about the personal perception of things from everyday life. From the beginning, Volráb's language in the manner of engraving was very lapidary, rawly austere without embellishments. Volráb's work with glass became characterised by the style that counterbalanced the massive cuts with only small "graphic" structures of splinter cuts. But this does not mean anything in the sense of reduced emotionality and sensitivity. It is precisely this external roughness and shape characteristics that are significantly more effective in terms of expression than a descriptive filigree engraving ever could.

In the 1990s he created a group of objects made of layered glass blown into a mould. The objects take the form of massive stereometric shapes, cylinders leaning on a tapered leg or standing on edge, lenticular discs, etc. Often, the signal colour of the enamel bears a distant resemblance to the forms of some kind of children's toys, but their surface again bears the vigorous engraving of figuration, the letter structures of old tombstones or stylised landscape forms. This makes them into objects – fateful "signs". However, the form of application on the "inappropriate", non-pretentiously playful shapes also protects their appearance from demonstrative gloomy soulfulness.

The artist also used the technique of engraving into layered blown shapes in another larger series of cylindrical objects with landscape motifs. Although the starting point is a simple form, through fissures, slits, notches, relief-cut shapes on the surface, and structural treatment of the surfaces, these objects create fascinating panoramas of archetypal landscapes in which there is room to contemplate the nature and importance of basic human things. His engravings seem to lay bare a person's innermost feelings, his process of experiencing the world composed of many fragmented emotions. They are difficult to grasp and describe, and would lose their persuasiveness with any attempt at pictorial representation. They can only be fleetingly hinted at by proxy "images"- landscapes of the nooks and crannies of consciousness without concrete shapes and events.

Since 2000, Volráb's works developed a similar imaginative landscape feature. His fused glass panels are completely reduced in colour, with sandblasted and cut relief elements, horizontal bands with transparencies or completely dark silhouettes. Despite the outward resemblance, they are not a realistic representation of the natural scenery. The works evoke the feeling of being in a confined space that represents a kind of intimate place, open to the awareness of private and hidden hopes, disappointments, joys and sorrows and all the contradictions of human emotions. The dark multi-part rivers may be prompted by the experience of perceived reality but they can also be a parable of the hidden submerged rivers in human souls. Miroslava Hlaváčková sees parallels in Volráb's sculptures with the imagination of Franz Kafka or the raw and poignant paintings of Alén Diviš and compares them to a volcanic force that leaves traces of boiling and gradual solidification, during which matter is stretched, shrivelled, collapsed and structured into new units. The object can thus be a testimony of hope, whether it is hidden in someone close or in a vision called "angel".

Painting Alongside his glass realisations, Volráb's paintings are full of soft light, fragility and subtlety of colour. The harsh, rough, unrelieved appearance of the glass is replaced by a subtle tremulousness of lines and surfaces, often overlapping or half-erased, as if the sought-after shape is being born with difficulty, hesitantly searching for its true form. Although the motifs of the figures are encrypted in them, they again take the form of a kind of inner landscapes. They are not filled with nervous tension, but rather with calm, although the plot set in them is not devoid of traumatic moments. His characters feel despondency, loneliness or imprisonment (Anxiety, 2007). The manifestations of intimate experiences, feelings and relationships of the human individual are dealt with in the series Close Being I-V (2012). Everything seems to be observed behind a silk veil of understanding reconciliation.

The paintings seem like an indistinct dream that cannot be understood, but it is possible to find oneself right in the middle of it. Even though Volráb's paintings have much in common with landscapes, they are rather records of situations in an environment where something is being born, expanded and formed. As early as 1997, the colour palette was limited to white and shades of grey, with accents of colour here and there, but stillness or almost imperceptible movement of an almost cinematic nature prevailed. It was only in 2006-2008 that drama began to unfold on the white surface, and the energetic and dynamic brushstrokes are reminiscent of a snowstorm. 2015 Glaskunst aus dem RUBIKON, Glasmuseum Frauenau 2015 Glass - Vladimír Kopecký & his school, MA'MA Club Gallery, Ostrava 2021/2022 Affected by Storm and Calm, Portheimka Museum of Glass, Prague