Vladivoj Kotyza
30. 11. 1943 He was born in Prague into the family of the well-known doctor Prof. MUDr. František Kotyza.
1943 - 1949 Lives with his family in Havlíčkův Brod. From this period come determinative space and light impressions, which Kotyza mentions in connection with his work: the view from the choir of the illuminated church in Rajhrad, monumental views of the countryside from above from the castle of Lipnice, childhood games amidst the wreckage of military machinery on the old embankment of the Sázava River.
1949 The Kotyza family moves to Plzen.
1950-61 Studies at the 11-year High School in Plzen. He is interested in Nature, especially botany, spends holidays with his family in an old mill on the River Mza and reads science fiction (Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles).
1961 - 1967 Studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague: he attends in turn in the painting studios of professors Vojtěch Tittelbach, Arnošt Paderlík and Antonín Pelc; after conflicts with his teachers he finds sanctuary in the restoration studio of Bohumil Slánský (together with J. Jedlička). Trips with the studio to northern Bohemia (Jezeří, Osek, Židovice), excursions on his own to the Prague peripheries (“journeys to the very edge”).
1961 - 1963 Summer forestry brigade work in the Bohemian Forest with the pupils of the Forestry School in Plzen.
1966 Exhibition in an empty apartment in Prague na Újezdě, together with J. Jedlička and M. Rachlík.
1967-68 Year of military service in Milovice.
1968 Lives in Plzen, paints and supports himself mainly with graphic and restoration work (up to 1988).
70’s and 80’s He paints “probable spaces”: pictures of fantasy landscapes, originating from primal feelings in the studio (Spaces, 1975; View, 1978; Deserted City, 1985). The main theme continues to be the intermingling of technical and natural landscapes.
1984 Painted triptych entitled Awakening in the Faculty Hospital in Plzen.
1987 – 1990 Realistic pictures emerge of the vanishing cultural landscape of the Plzen district of Roudná, earmarked for demolition (Window, 1989; Fata Morgana, 1987; Cessation, 1987; Floods I-III, 1990).
1990 - 2010 He works mainly in the open air, capturing real, but increasingly abstracted images of Nature in the wild at specific, subjectively boundary moments.
1988–2005 Works as a lecturer at the Pedagogical Faculty of the West Bohemian University in Plzen.
2001 Creates the wall paintings entitled "THEATRUM MUNDI", Proluka (vacant site) in the Křižík Orchards in Plzen
From 2005 Works as a lecturer in the Institute of Art and Design of the West Bohemian University in Plzen.
From 2010 Works exclusively on drawing in the open air: by means of linear drawing with a bamboo splint and Indian ink he records his own thoughts authentically in the context of surrounding Nature.
