Lucie Jandova interviews Roman Franta

Were you a beetle collector when you were a child?

No, I was not. I was interested in bugs, though, as boys usually are. I remember times when there were huge numbers of may-bugs; they would fall down from full-grown chestnut trees into our hair and behind our collars.

And do you have a collection of beetles now?

No, I don't, just a few I received from my friends. Occasionally, I get a prepared beetle or a toy bug, a pendant as a souvenir. But it is not a collection.

How did you come up with the idea of expressing yourself by means of intertwined bodies of bugs?

At first, I painted expressive paintings and colourful abstract structures. I wanted to capture music, for instance. I was fascinated by the music of Japanese drummers. But that emotive style of painting became quite exhausting for me after some time.

Japanese drummers? Where have you heard them?

I heard them during my studies in San Francisco, at the local Tajko Dojo festival. It was absolutely fantastic. The music was just bursting with energy, rhythm and movement – the musicians were running around, beating the drums and gongs with drumsticks. I wanted to get close to that music.

Do you think that music is easier to express than paintings?

I wouldn't say easier, but more intense. I was thinking about what was stronger – music, or painting? Because even if I shed blood working on a painting, the result won't be as strong as a musical composition. So I made an agreement with one of the Japanese guys that we would cooperate. That was how I got to create a cycle of paintings on the basis of his compositions. Later on, we switched roles – I did the paintings first and then he composed music to them.

Each note stood for a colour?

Not that exactly. I painted spontaneously as I was listening to the music. I did it using drumsticks I have made, I used my hands to work with the pictures and I would slide over the canvas in my shoes.

That sounds wild. No injury?

No, only I had to paint on canvas without a frame because it would have tripped me up.

When did you start painting things that you can eat?

It was when experiments like those I've talked about started exhausting me – not physically, but in terms of mental intensity. It came in handy that I was a photographer, too. I have been photographing ordinary things in the countryside as well as in the city. From this, there was only a little step to painting various structures that have become more concrete over time.

Until you eventually started painting beetles...

Yes, but before I did, I had been painting other animal motifs for at least three years, such as the intertwined snakes.

Or various kinds of food. Was it that you had to like the food you painted?

I selected it mainly by colour and shape, and then I enlarged it. It involved a certain degree of exaggeration, irony and mystification. Apples, oranges, carrots, tomatoes, peppers. Later on, when I started painting increasingly minute structures, I even tried rice. Bugs were the natural next step.

From rice to bugs? Were there bugs in the rice?

No, not that, but as I was painting the little white grains on a large surface, the rice started trembling and teeming before my eyes, creating an unusual visual effect.

Do you have a similar sense of detail in everyday life? Are you a perfectionist?

I guess so. And once I start doing something, I try to finish it as fast as possible to see the result. I am curious, you know.

Which bug do you like most?

I don't have any particular favourite, but I prefer the nicely coloured ones. I've read books on beetles and spent quite some time studying the shapes and colours of beetle bodies. However, my bugs are stylized.

So you don't say to yourself: "I like the ground beetle best, so I will do the ground beetle." Or do you?

No, I don't. Most of my bugs are identical in shape. Essentially, I paint them by a single stroke of the brush. But bugs enable me to use all aspects of developing a painting – colour, shape, and content.

Which were your first "bug" portraits?

I first portrayed Nick Cave, Martin Kippengerger, Mick Jagger, and Timothy Leary, all of whom had something to do with drugs and alcohol. Then I started portraying my friends.

And your latest portraits?

Czech Presidents Vaclav Klaus and Vaclav Havel. But I painted them for other reasons, of course.

Why have you chosen them?

Because one succeeded the other in the presidential office – it was a transition between two terms. Moreover, I have their posters on the wall in my studio.

Why did you post them up like this?

I guess I wanted to go back to my childhood years and feel like I was in a classroom (laugh). And as they hung there, I studied them. In the pictures, they both wear a kind of reddish tie, a similar dark suit, their first name is Vaclav and their last names comprise five letters.

Which one was easier for you to do?

I think Havel's portrait is truer to the original. I painted them at the same time, using the same colours. Originally, though, it was to be a single painting comprising two integrated portraits, similar to the one on the cover of the catalogue for the Brno exhibition Vaclav's Metamorphosis. It was to symbolize development or a change in the society.

How would you characterize those periods of time?

Havel was a philosopher and a writer, Klaus is an economist and a pragmatist. Each looks at the society from a different perspective – and the society reflects this.

Are you going to portray any other politicians?

I don't think so. I could go on portraying the entire Senate or the Parliament, though. It is true that human character changes, and the change is particularly apparent in politicians.

You called one of your latest projects the Supermarket. Instead of piling up bugs, you pile consumer goods in it.

I am fascinated by quantity. When I go shopping, I stare at the colourful shelves full of goods and I am spell-bound. Take frozen vegetables, for instance. Such quantities of carrots, green peas, celery! To paint it, I once bought so much of it I couldn't fit it in my freezer. I enjoy painting a specific thing that looks abstract from a distance and creates a certain ornament.

In one of your paintings, you have piled up television sets.

A young guy lives near my studio, a collector of old TVs and radios. He can repair just about any model that has ever been made. When I first saw his flat where he has stacked these old sets high up to the ceiling, I was fascinated by the multitude. The painting is almost identical to one of his walls.

So you like shopping at supermarkets?

Well, let's say that when I go to such a place, I tend to spend a long time there. My wife, though, is a fast shopper, so when I go "promenading", she soon starts rushing me to the cash desk.

There are people who hate supermarkets.

I appreciate that. Shopping there has no personal charm. Before I moved, I used to go to a nearby non-stop shop. I enjoyed every bit of it - standing in a queue, chatting with the shop assistant... There is no such little shop near where I live now, so I have to go to supermarkets. Anonymously, I hand my credit card to the cashier, pay, put away the shopping cart – it's just not the same thing. And yet – there is something about supermarkets that fascinates me. It may be the stereotypical movement of people, the shopping pattern, the cart pushing, the loading and unloading of goods...

So you are fascinated by quantity?

Yes, indeed. For instance, I was fascinated by the crowd at the funeral of the Pope. The mass of human bodies. When I see a photo of a group somewhere, and it doesn't have to be just people, I go and cut it out immediately. Later on, I use it to make collages that give new meanings to things. I glue these cuttings into a copybook and sometimes add various lines, quotations or excerpts from advertisements.

So you like crowds of people? Have you ever considered leaving town?

I like them on photographs; otherwise, I am not a crowd lover. I live on the outskirts of Prague. It is relatively quiet here.

No advertisements?

Why, of course not, advertisements are ubiquitous. I don't watch television that often, so I don't mind TV ads that much, but there are just too many of them alongside roads. The same with buildings – sometimes you can hardly see the façade underneath the ads. I guess the people don't mind anymore. They are short of money, so they have one of those large advertisements put up on their house and look at it while they do some gardening.

Exactly. Advertisements, just like supermarkets, have become a common part of our lives.

You can see this most clearly with children. They watch TV more than I do and often quote advertising slogans word for word. Advertisements are out of all proportion today. Soon, the entire country will be littered with them. I am furious when I see gigantic billboards obscuring the view of one half of a wood or spoiling a wonderful panorama. Petrol stations are shooting up like mushrooms, there are incredible heaps of goods that just cannot be bought out, loads of information that you cannot absorb, people crowded in cities... There is too much of everything, and it is just teeming before your eyes. It may be that this teeming inspires me to paint the swarming of bugs.

 

In Prague, June 2005