oil on canvas, 27 × 38 cm, canvas, signed PETRBOK 2014 on the side
Jiří Petrbok studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the studio of Prof. Radomír Kolář and prof. Jiří Sopek. After school he worked in various civil professions. In 1995 he joined the drawing studio of Jitka as an assistant professor. Svobodová at the Academy of Fine Arts, which he currently heads. Shortly after graduation AVU in Prague, his work was dominated by dark painting in a range of black and grey, layered and scratched in a rough texture, with a strongly expressive handwriting. The subject matter of the paintings was mostly ordinary objects stripped of their usual context. During the 1990s, the artist gradually switched to grotesque figurative painting, often with autobiographical features, which critically holds up a mirror to contemporary society and points to the distorted human identity. In his work, man is both the victim and the perpetrator of the state of today's society. An international parallel to Petrbok's critically engaged painting are the works of the Chapman brothers.
