Hynek Martinec
Hynek Martinec is a London based Czech British painter, celebrated for hyperrealist paintings which combine a classical approach with contemporary philosophical inquiry - exploring themes including temporality and authenticity. Martinec studied Classical Painting Techniques with the revered Czech artist, Zdeněk Beran at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague and moved to London in 2007 after winning the prestigious BP Young Artist Award (2007). His paintings are inspired by Old Masters and/or photographs, which link the past with the future, using modern technologies.
For Martinec, art as an act of survival and hope; a way of proving “I am here” and marking presence across time. In an age of accelerating technologies and artificial intelligence, he remains optimistic, seeing creativity as a collaborative and ever-expanding opportunity for intuition and imagination. Over the past two decades, Martinec has documented his dreams daily, creating thousands of sketches that serve as a source for his paintings. This dream archive allows him to explore the unstable territory between memory, reverie, and fantasy, asking whether it is possible to build an entirely new visual language from the unconscious.
Martinec’s work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally; including being selected 3 times for the BP Portrait Award (2007, 2009, 2013) and the John Moores Painting Prize (2014). His work is held in major collections including, British Museum, London, National Gallery, Prague, Zabludowicz Collection, London, Sammlung FIEDE, Aschaffenburg, Standard Chartered Bank, London, WCIT Collection, London, Asante Art Collection, Basel, Pro Arte Collection, Prague, Robert Runtak Collection, Olomouc and Omer Koc Collection, Istanbul.
For Martinec, art as an act of survival and hope; a way of proving “I am here” and marking presence across time. In an age of accelerating technologies and artificial intelligence, he remains optimistic, seeing creativity as a collaborative and ever-expanding opportunity for intuition and imagination. Over the past two decades, Martinec has documented his dreams daily, creating thousands of sketches that serve as a source for his paintings. This dream archive allows him to explore the unstable territory between memory, reverie, and fantasy, asking whether it is possible to build an entirely new visual language from the unconscious.
Martinec’s work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally; including being selected 3 times for the BP Portrait Award (2007, 2009, 2013) and the John Moores Painting Prize (2014). His work is held in major collections including, British Museum, London, National Gallery, Prague, Zabludowicz Collection, London, Sammlung FIEDE, Aschaffenburg, Standard Chartered Bank, London, WCIT Collection, London, Asante Art Collection, Basel, Pro Arte Collection, Prague, Robert Runtak Collection, Olomouc and Omer Koc Collection, Istanbul.