Jaroslav Havlík is a wanderer through life who comes – in perpetual cycle – back to essentials issues of being. Positively, he is not a voyeur stealing covertly anybody’s identity; he is reluctant to present the photographed people as something peculiar or strange. His photographs show his quest to find answers to ultimate questions that have been asked at all times in many cultures and places. Who we are, where we are going, how we should live and die, what is meaningful in one’s life.
During his travels around Asia, Nepal and Tibet have impressed most in his mind. He meets local people in everyday’s context of their lives. And he does not hurry; Jaroslav becomes one with their pace of life and they, in return, share their everyday and festive moments with him, they chores, joys, sorrows, passions, and weaknesses; all of that with the Himalayas in the background, the mountain range illustrious for its beauty, inhospitality, and monumentality. People we find in Jaroslav’s pictures make their livings in them, they have their deities in them, and under divine protection they build their homes, temples, monasteries, and cultures. They found theirs ways how live and survive here.
Jaroslav Havlík is a photographer-wanderer who takes his photos from the heart of situation, relationship, experience; that is why he is so good at depicting intimate moments free of pose and attitude. There is no need to beautify – neither reality, nor its photographic reflection. The contrast of black and white, of all their hues coming up in light, emphasizes rawness and candidness of depicted reality.
A bunch of pilgrims amidst holy rocks on the shores of Namtso lake whose waters reflect endless Tibetan skies. Bristled chröten spires, which cover relics of Tibetan lamas and scholars, resemble mountain peaks stretching to infinity. A wreckage of an army jet employed in "liberation” of Lhasa in 1950’s on display in front of the Potata Palace as a memento of Chinese presence in Tibet.
A young nomad pensively smiling through a foggy cloud rising up from a hot water spring somewhere in Western Tibet. A villager on a horseback looking as if he is just incidentally going by a perfectly conical holy rock, a mythical part of his living on Tibetan Plateau. An old Nepali woman wearing jewels and looking out of the window of her rural house with a knowing stare resembling the gaze of Buddha, whose head – casted away in detritus of giant earthen statues near Red Temple in Tsaparang. Western Tibet – embodies passing nature of this world. The eyes of an old lama have seen a lot, yet they are full of trust and goodness. Termination and death are superseded by birth, grown, and maturation. The cycle goes on.
Zuzana Ondomišiová, Prague
All photos displayed on this web page is possible to buy. Photos are black and white in dimensions up to 50 × 60 cm. For furher information please write to jaro.havlik(at)seznam.cz
