Bethlehem

František Balon, who is known as FRBA, is an artist who has always been passionated about painting, since he was a child. In particular, he admires prehistoric cave paintings, paintings on the walls of chambers in the Egyptian pyramids, and the work of such masters as: Pieter Bruegel, Hieronymus Bosch, Amadeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, also Henri Rousseau, Tadeusz Makowiecki (Polish painter living in France). Among the Czech painters, he admires mainly Ján Zrzavý and Josef Čapek. He tried all art techniques, being interested also in carving. From 1974 to 1985, he was professionally engaged in photography and applied graphics. Then, from the 1990s, he became independent as a graphic artist. At that time, he exhibited quite a lot. In 2013, he travelled to the Canary Islands, where he spent a year, and two years later he went to the south of Sweden. When he lived abroad, he intensively returned to painting. Since 2016, he has definitively settled back in the Czech Republic, where he actually lives in the city of Znojmo.
Even though his swedish friends him "painter of thoughts", he could be classified as a symbolist. His paintings are deliberately freed from details and precision. Associations with ancient cave paintings are also evident on them. The creation of his canvases is a long process, because it started from an idea, which goes through numerous sketches. His travels bring new inspirations to his canvases.
He continues to sporadically work on utility graphics, especially book graphics. Basically, he paints pictures only for himself.