Jaroslav Koléšek is able to combine an explicit respect for the sculptural tradition with an effort to abandon permanently the certainties of these deeply engraved tracks in the history of the medium. He therefore seeks new themes and new means of expression without necessarily having to resign himself to material enclosure, morphological balance and the use of classical materials. Perhaps this is also because he studied at the sculpture studio led by Mario Kotrba at the Department of Fine Arts, now the Faculty of Arts, of the University of Ostrava, where the balance between tradition and its re-codification was a key theme.
A member of the now defunct VY3 group (comprising the painters Aleš Hudeček and Katarína Szanyi Hudečková), winner of several awards (e.g. the Rudolf Schlattauer Award in 2010, the Václav Chad Award in 2003), and currently the head of the sculpture studio (formerly headed by Mario Kotrba) at the Faculty of Arts in Ostrava, Koléšek deploys diverse forms of sculptural thinking to repeatedly explore how elastic the boundaries of sculptural creation were and are. He does not only develop the enclosed mass within the traditional verticals, but often, on the contrary, explores the possibility of accentuating its horizontal development (Panzer, 1998; Mise / Mission, 2003; Placebo, 2005; Vyrobeno pod povrchem / Made under the surface, 2008). Characteristic of his work is irony, wit and exaggeration, which he applies with torsos and fragments of the human body (Lýtko / Calf, 1999; Něžné náboje / Tender Bullets, 2000), and in order to lighten the meanings and military themes burdened with contemporary topicality (Kursk, Missionary, Panzer, Nest (KFOR)). Scale shifts and the polarity of elements form another feature of his work (Sladkosti / Sweets, 2000; Flowerpower, 2007), along with his frequent efforts to replicate the morphological motifs used and their material and semantic coherence. He works with bronze and sandstone, but also with resin and cement. During a certain period of his work (when he was a lecturer at the glass school in Valašské Meziříčí), he also included glass in his spatial compositions (Chyba v oběhu / Error in Circulation, 2010, Mask VY3, 2006).
He is able to react to tradition in a way that sustains rather than empties it. He is one of the few contemporary Czech sculptors who is able, thanks to his virtuosic craftsmanship, to turn the anachronism of classically conceived sculptural expression and the materials used from a seemingly insurmountable handicap into an obvious advantage.
