Painter Ondřej Basjuk was captivated by the underground space of the house at Pernštýnské Square No. 49 – the space of the gallery. The original inspiration was a dive into childhood memories and the influence of his father, an electrical engineer. Cables, plugs, relays, and their spatial arrangements—among which he moved since childhood—became the starting point. The idea of electrical discharge combined with a boyish perception of the world gave the exhibition its name. The lightning motif symbolizes the power of electricity and also sudden enlightenment.
The experience of the Pardubice cellar added another dimension. The painter transformed the space into a castle chamber—and not just any chamber. He created new paintings that work with wall surfaces and glimpses into other realms. The art is in symbiosis with the space; it does not compete with it but collaborates and develops it. The paintings do not always have traditional rectangular shapes; instead, they take on the form of doors or windows. The gallery itself is originally a late Gothic or Renaissance cellar, and thanks to thoughtfully placed objects, one can feel as if in an alternative world.
The artist combines canvas painting with modified frames using a material that could be roughly described as stucco lustro. This stucco imitation allows for work with illusion, as seen in Baroque churches where it replaced expensive marble. The painting becomes an illusionary passage to another place that doesn’t physically exist in the cellar. The canvas paintings are inspired by medieval illuminations and play with the idea of meeting the present with the past—or with an unreal world. A particular feature of illuminations is painting from imagination based on storytelling, especially about saints and adventurers. The illuminator, painting in the quiet of a monastery cell, likely never visited Byzantium or the Holy Land, yet tried to convey these places visually. Basjuk works with a similarly dreamlike reality. Motifs of rocks, palms, and flying birds appear in fragments, seemingly bricked in and damaged by modern concrete. One painting includes a relief of the Expulsion from Paradise. Usually, this scene depicts God casting out Adam and Eve after eating the apple of knowledge. In this version, however, the naked couple—our shared ancestors—expel God and the angels from Paradise, from the Tree of Knowledge. The doorframes in Basjuk’s object-paintings correspond to older architectural layers of historic Pardubice, as can be seen in the neighboring house No. 51, which has a historic portal featuring a lizard.
In a sense, we are led into a Zimmerreise space—a “room journey”—as conceived by Josef Navrátil in the 19th century. Thanks to painters, bourgeois and aristocratic patrons could enjoy a beautiful, rich journey around the world in a single room. When it rained, they could stroll along the walls and always find themselves somewhere new. In the Biedermeier period, it was a cheap and comfortable way to transcend everyday boundaries. For example, at the Jirny chateau, one can look out from an illusionary balustrade into Alpine landscapes with waterfalls and mountains.
Ondřej Basjuk has created an alchemical chamber of transformation in Pardubice. He drew upon his long-standing experience as a collector and his work with the National Museum and the Náprstek Museum. A certain sense of museality blends with the painter’s personal focus and his interest in electricity, which transforms the historic museum buildings both naturally and unnaturally—not so much through lighting as through the installation of wires, switches, and security boxes, which are essential for electrification. If we view the gallery space as a chamber and ask who might live there, it is perhaps the home of a mystic or a scientist-alchemist who, like Mary Shelley in Frankenstein, understands the power of electricity. A sudden flash, ignition, the surprising presence of energy in space—the experience of an electric discharge is incomparable.