The artistic painted expression of Petr Malina is often characterised as idyllic. His works consist mainly of peaceful subject matter and simple shapes. His paintings are clearly arranged, clean and clear. This artist is an observer, who travels to find his inspiration. The element of time takes its place between the subject and the painting. As a result it acts as a distancing element for the painted subject. Foreign environments open up to Malina, it would appear, in the most compact of compositions rather than in places that he knows well and from which he has suitable distance. The artist prefers to choose motifs, for which he can use large, clean, colourful surfaces – the sea, a park. Similarly in figural scenes the relation of colourful surfaces to the figure and its framework is standard.
His choice of composition is tied to photographs taken „in situ“. Malina expresses himself in image collections, whose sizes vary. He himself speaks of a „long-term submersion into a topic.“ In his older works the artist’s concentration on the human figure and its environment dominates. In his more recent works one can see a shift toward open landscapes. Here, the human figure is either on the same level as the landscape content-wise, or it is relegated to the role of a mere „extra“ or is completely forgotten. He also often makes variations on motifs or the landscape framework (in measure, colour-wise, etc.). Malina’s works are thus characterised by a precise, formal stylisation. Measurement (scale) plays an important role in his final works. His expressive smaller paintings reflect more on shared emotions, while his larger-format works place emphasis on distance and a sense of precisely-expressed pictorial (artistic) form.
„Border areas“ are a key topic for Malina. Besides ocean motifs, where he captures the earth’s watersheds and related water levels, he also works primarily on painting sets depicting suburban London. In these he loosely follows the transfer from big city organism to its surrounding suburban landscape. This change is also symbolically followed in paintings of used traffic signs that join two seemingly „separate“ worlds – for example, airplanes and automobiles.
On other levels the „watershed“ is monitored on the actual surface of the sky itself, where the gradual change of light from night to day and vice versa occurs. His most recent works indicate a certain amount of self introspection. Here one can find stylised self portraits, for which their background is important for their interpretation. Switching roles often takes place. They are no longer a mere record of a distant point on the landscape somewhere in foreign land, but there is also the artist’s own confessed presence. They are a sort of confirmation of places visited. The artist’s „I“ enters into the paintings. This self-confirmation takes place in open space as well as in closed spaces. Their selection is deliberate. They involve visits to world-renowned galleries and museum institutions. Here Malina is shown as a cultural tourist, who has come to admire his favourite artists. They are Alex Katz, Edward Hopper, or Luc Tymans.
