Zuzana Kubelková - Inter Alia

22/04/2022 – 14/06/2022

“I paint abstract landscapes where everything is allowed. I give vent to my inner eye, my inner self, expressive and untamed. The combination of all these aspects and materials transforms the surfaces of the paintings into vases that make them three-dimensional. They are an accident and an intention.” Zuzana Kubelková (*1987) is a graduate of Ilja Bílek’s renowned Glass Studio at the Faculty of Art and Design, J. E. Purkyně University (UJEP) in Ústí nad Labem. Her art represents the essence of glass art experimentation, rooted in an endless search for the new opportunities associated with this material. Which means interpreting the concept of form in a pioneering new manner, finding ways to integrate glass with non-traditional materials, and utilising groundbreaking technologies to craft the finished product. In this sense, abstract artworks examine the nature of physical strength, including such themes as incursion and destruction; performative kinetic works examine chemical crystal growth processes; and opportunities are sought to process fragile glass textiles for the creation of wearable masks and abstract vases.  

  Kubelková’s newest series comprises a number of vases and other art objects, collectively titled “Frozen Landscape”. This serves as a follow-up to her previous experimental “Sui Generis” and “El Cuco” series, in which the artist examined the possibilities associated with using transparent glass and dark basalt textiles. “Frozen Landscape” is inspired by a series of abstract paintings that combine acrylic colours and soft pastels (and which also form part of this exhibition). The themes and content of these wall paintings have been transposed by the author into 3D art objects, in which the strokes and lines of basalt fabric on the surface of glass mirror the pastel strokes on the surface of paintings. The exhibited vases have been created via a Swedish “cameo glass” technique. Basalt fabric is stronger than glass when heated, in this case holding its form via a kind of belt-tightening technique that holds in the rim of a vase. Liquid glass and a layer of dye are then absorbed into the fibrous fabric grid enabling the creation of an abstract image on the vase’s surface. Zuzana Kubelková is a tireless experimenter, whose work is geared towards breaking through existing barriers and the creation of a range of tectonic shapes that evoke a sense of perpetual movement. The Inter Alia exhibition thus serves as a continuation of the aforementioned ongoing process of artistic searching, representing a kind of expedition towards the very boundaries of creative expression that glass, as an artistic material, can offer. Ján Gajdušek Curator of the exhibition