[…] A distant Byzantine breath, carrying its noble iconographies, spreads through Zàvrel’s work with its ornate and timeless aura, archetypal and spiritualized.
However, that visual memory, almost inevitable for a man from the East, has not simply been preserved in its pure form but has continuously merged with the European and modern artistic heritage of Central Europe—where the great masters of the past century left their mark. From Klee’s colorism to Nolde’s intimacy, from Klimt’s decorative delight to Chagall’s festive storytelling, all these European artists, despite the critical scrutiny of the Enlightenment-driven Western culture, kept their gaze fixed on the cultural skies of the East.[…]
Štěpán Zàvrel continually united two Europes, distinct in both time and space, weaving them together into a synthesis of spiritual humanism.
A marriage, in its own way prophetic, in which the course of art and the spirit opens paths that do not solely follow skepticism and deconstruction, disbelief and disillusionment, but rather those of desire and imagination, responsibility and hope. In other words, the other modernity.
Text by Giuliano Zanchi