Jan Kolata: "I paint the colours as they factually are." The winner of the Düsseldorf art exhibition "Die Grosse" in 2023.

Düsseldorf, June 2023

By Lizzie Mauer

The Rolling Stones - Unzipped, installation views, Groningen Museum, 2020-2021 © Peter Tahl

Düsseldorf, Repost June 2023: Jan Kolata is the laureate of the Düsseldorf art exhibition "Die Grosse" in 2023. "Die Grosse" is the largest exhibition in Germany organised by the artists' association. It always takes place in the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and visitors can even buy the works. Jan Kolata studied as a master student at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1970 to 1977. He later received art scholarships, including a coveted guest studio at the Villa Romana in Florence. Until his retirement in 2016, Jan Kolata held a professorship for painting at the University of Dortmund. His paintings can be found in museums and private collections all over the world.

One of Jan Kolata's paintings on display at the Kunstpalast towers above all others at 8.20 metres high and 5.20 metres wide. But it is also overwhelming because of its radiant bright colours. Actually, all of his paintings radiate optimism and vitality. Such large works are not done with a classical brush but with tools such as shears. In do-it-yourself stores, which the artist calls his Mecca, he is always looking for new tools that he could use for large-scale application or removal of paint.

"I painted on the spot and was busy transferring information to the picture surface and not so much with the picture itself. In the face of the motif, the picture takes on a life of its own and becomes more important itself."

In his painting, Jan Kolata invents his paintings out of the painting process, inspired by the colour and the challenges and risks that suddenly arise. Jan Kolata describes his beginnings: "I had no money to go on holiday and built myself a painting moped to paint flat landscapes on the Lower Rhine and curvy linear landscapes in the Bergisches Land. I painted on the spot and was busy transferring information to the picture surface and not so much with the picture itself. In the face of the motif, the picture takes on a life of its own and becomes more important itself." In his painting, he wants to reverse the concept of abstraction: "I paint concretely, nothing is abstracted from something already seen. I paint the colours and the forms as they actually are without any reference to an otherworldly possibility. I invent pictures out of the painting process. So I make this process so adventurous for me that it is a challenge and a risk every time."

"Painting is like a football game."

Painting, he says, is like a football game for him, where he is his own opponent. He mixes paint in the morning, then listens to music loudly with headphones like punk, garage, rock, to physically shoot himself into painting. " I force myself to act quickly and throw paint on it, make pools, let it dry or remove it again. Basically similar to a football game, where I am my own opponent.“

"I walk on them with a squeegee or walk over them and return part of the picture."

A very large painting hangs in the Kunstpalast, probably the largest in the exhibition. How does he paint these pictures? "I walk on them with a squeegee or walk over them and return part of the picture." The colours are atmospheric, Jan Kolata feels inspired of landscape painting coming with light, wind, sun, fog and also water plays a role for the painter.

"In the studio I have a letterpress printing press, with an electronic ink roller, with which you can print colour gradients".

Jan Kolata's father was a gilder. As a child, he was very impressed by his father's workshop: "Bright gold cannot be compared to anything else. Until a few years ago, jan Kolata held a professorship at the University of Dortmund. Dortmund is a technical university and the maxim of research and teaching applies. So he always had the opportunity to continue his own artistic work. Now that he has retired, he has more time. The editions that are on sale at the Kunstpalast were made by him: "In the studio I have a letterpress printing press, with an electronic ink roller, with which you can print colour gradients". Jan Kolata exhibits worldwide; he has a gallerist in Paris, where he exhibits regularly, and a gallerist in Toronto.