Born in 1978 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Jan Kaláb is one of the country’s most notable contemporary artists’ today. A founding pioneer of the Prague underground graffiti, and street art scene, formerly known as Cakes, and with his crew, The DSK – together they animated city streets, and spent many sleepless nights in train yards.
After those glory days, Jan’s work evolved into 3-D graffiti, light-suspended installations, animated NFTs, paintings, and sculptures. His paintings teeter on the edge of sculpture and his sculptures are mostly painted. All the while, shape and colour are the main characters of his work, which he pushes and blends together to exaggerate, or minimize, forms. Sometimes Jan’s work may resemble a particular shape, but it is never his intention to capture, nor replicate an existing image or narrative. Rather, he seeks universal beauty in an unseen and novel perspective, redirecting the known into the unknown; into a new dimension. The sensations of déjà vu, like remembering a special moment or melody; this is the ultimate feeling, Jan strives to achieve and wishes to resonate with his audience.
A Masters’s graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts of Prague in 2006, Jan had his first solo exhibition shortly thereafter in 2008 at the acclaimed Trafo Gallery, an exclusive art space notorious for showing only outstanding artists with limited shows of six per year. Since then, Jan has exhibited in high-profile galleries around the world, including New York, Miami, London, Paris, Shanghai, and Rio de Janeiro.
