About my life

I grew up in a family of six in Prague in the Czech Republic. At the age of twelve, I went to Brazil with my parents and younger brother for two years – my father was offered an offer to teach geophysics there. Brazil got under my skin. I learned to think in their language. I was fascinated by the diversity that Brazil is full of, from poverty to wealth, the size of trees, plants and animals. I have absorbed these two years like a sponge. And I still draw from this wild culture. The name my Impressão also comes from Brazil. My impression, mood, atmosphere.

When I returned home, I learned to be a potter and started to make animals from crustaceans to mammals. And she fell into passion, drawing an act. Later, I applied to the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. In my second year, I transferred to the Figural Sculpture Studio. From the beginning, I wanted to learn to honestly “build a shot”, ie create a statue according to the human model. At this time, my life was mainly about making sculptures. Everything else went aside. I spent most of my time alone with my sculptures in the studio. And she enjoyed the creative atmosphere, when a new work is born under your hands.When I was satisfied with my creative passions, I felt lonely, which began to weigh on me and the statues could no longer fill it. That was when I started looking for a different way to live.

At that time, I discovered the philosophy Principles of life – Principy života®  and began to “work” on myself internally. And she began to see the contents of the statues again. For the first time, she experienced what it meant to express oneself in matter. Today, I no longer create other sculptures, I am interested in human compositions that create relationships with each other. Every such statue tells of me, it’s a piece of my story, so gradually the sculptures form a diary of my life.

So I took my life for a different end. And gradually, out of solitude surrounded only by statues, I worked my way up to create my own family. Today I am married for the second time and my husband Martin and I have three children, Vilém, Ela and Robin. We moved to Prague. And they built a beautiful farm studio there. We bought Dutch goats, cats and a dog. Life in the village is much more colorful for me. And I definitely can’t complain about the stimuli in my life. I had a lot of fun around me.

Every statue of mine is the result of what I am currently experiencing. And creating a sculpture helps me process this process on that inner plane. It’s a long process for me that can’t be rushed. The statue needs to mature, both inside and out. And whether I cut into stone or model in clay.
It makes much more sense to me to create for a specific client. I enjoy putting together all the views involved and then creating something beautiful out of it.

About me

• 2001 – 2007: Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, Studio of figural sculpture and medals led by Professor Jan Hendrych
• 2005: Stay at Accademia de belle arti di Carrara during student exchange programme Erasmus
• 2010 – today lecturer of personal development seminars – Principles of life – Principy života®
• Since 2011: member of the SUV Mánes association
• In the years 2012 – 2020: teacher of clay moulding at private international school of architecture – Architectural Institute In Prague (ARCHIP)
• Since 2016: member of the Spolek sochařů České republiky association.
  

  My sculpture story

  1. Dragonfly being born.

  
  I began to discover my sculpting skills in František Švancar’s ceramic workshop in Kampa. František gave me a free hand and trust. He let me take as much clay as I needed, and then I could model from morning to night. I started with the world of crustaceans and moved on to the world of insects, which continues to fascinate me. Ceramics forces a person to large shapes. And so shells, grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, dragonflies began to take shape under my hands. The dragonfly was a very important sculpture for me. I modeled a dragonfly being born from a larva. When a colorful, winged helicopter emerges from the dark larva. This is where I felt for the first time how much what I model touches my personal life. Being back in the Czech Republic after two years in Brazil made me quite withdrawn. I felt like a dark larva that desperately needed to be reborn into a flying, colorful being. Spread your wings.

  2. Fleming horse.

  

  I gradually worked my way up from insects to reptiles to mammals. I tried to enlarge the animals and the ceramic mass to understand how clay shrinkage works and how to account for it. I built huge scaffolding and created my animals on it. She gradually cut the animal into individual parts, hollowed out the parts and dried them. I experienced every burn, every crack. I then engobed or glazed the ceramic animals, or had them sandblasted. I tested what the clay can handle and how I can deal with it.
  Ceramic clay stopped being enough for me and I started researching epoxy materials. Peter Oriešek was a great support for me in the discovery of epoxy materials, who even later played a key role for me when I did not manage to get to Ava, so he supported me as much as possible, and thanks to his and Martina Fotrová’s support, I created many beautiful sculptures and drawing.
  Such a rebirth for me was the transparent epoxy horse, which I modeled in František’s ceramic workshop. It was this horse that opened the door to an even different modeling than the ceramic clay had allowed me to do.

  3. Portrait of mom.

  
  Another important discipline for me was portraiture. I started modeling my mother in our block of flats. I divided my room into a sleeping area and a modeling area. I sat my mother down on the cupboard and got to work. Over the years I have created several portraits of my mother. I learned a lot about her, what she loves, what she hates, what she really is like. I tried to print all this experience in the portrait. Vojtěch Adamec Jr. was a great support for me during this adventure. He came to see me in South City for proofreading and showed me how to build a large shape. Vojtěch gave me the courage to try cutting stone. So, on his recommendation, I got the Supíkovice marble and immortalized my mother’s portrait in František Švancar’s garden. I helped myself with the dot method. And thanks to the individual points on the statue, I transferred the portrait modeled in plaster to the stone.

  4. Jardinera.

  
  I started modeling from sculpting clay and I started going out into the field to look for animals. I went to goat farms and stables. I spent most of my time in the stables in Jinonice with Marian and Alice. I used to draw horses here, I went to morning training to understand what the horse’s muscles do when they move. Although I had been showjumping on horses for two years in Brazil, I felt that I had never studied horses like this before. I started to look at horses with different eyes. Marian and Alicia taught me a lot of things, they showed me how horses think, what is important to them and what they need. During my trips to the stables, I created a travel stand and modeled directly in the stables. This horse modeled in the stables named Chardineira opened the door to bronze for me.
  Mr. Miloš Vacek, a blacksmith, spotted the horse in the workshop. We agreed that he would cast two horses, give one to me and keep the other. So I had my first bronze statue in my apprentice years.

  In this period of my horse, I found Irena Mikešová, to whom I started going for consultations. Questions swirled in me, what was going on inside me? Modeling and solitude were always enough for me for such questions, but this time my beloved modeling was no longer helping me. I needed to get to know myself much more thoroughly, I was surprised by how many conflicting feelings I have inside me and I don’t understand each other. The Irish woman took everything I said seriously – that fascinated me. I didn’t take myself so seriously until then. I was fascinated to explore what was happening inside me and how many experiences a person has inside without having any idea about them.
  I fell in love with this inner exploration and search and began to study this philosophy of the heart for me, first as a Mandala and then as the Principles of Life. I still study it today. I see it as part of my sculpting journey. This philosophy fundamentally influenced my direction. From individual studies, I got to compositions full of human bodies.

  5. Gabriela.

  
  Then I finally got to AVU in Jan Hendrych’s figurative studio. I learned to model the human body. To build a dummy, as they say in the sculpting industry. I loved working with the human model. Already working on my mother’s portrait opened the door to people, how to listen to people and understand them. I was fascinated by the space of time you have when modeling with a model. What an intimate time it is together. I tried all possible models, never missed an opportunity to work with a model. And I understood that not everyone can establish this inner relationship. I found that if I didn’t connect with the connection in question, I couldn’t create the sculpture.
  It dawned on me a little more that what happens inside me is then reflected outside. And that I cannot separate the inner world from the outer world. That they are both connected.

  6. Stone version We want to, but we shouldn’t.

  
  I found my first boyfriend at school. I felt a bit like a centrifuge. A plane opened up for me, from which I kind of hid between my statues. No wonder I immediately got lost in it all. As part of Erasmus, I had the opportunity to travel to Carrara, Italy. To the places where Michelangelo himself cut stone. To places where beautiful, white, fine-grained marble is mined. My classmates supported me a lot in this step. I needed to get away from the relationship I was stuck with and didn’t know how to get away from.
  I fell in love with Carrara stone and cut anything I could get my hands on from morning to night. I was fascinated by how the shape was born under my hands. How stone figures literally jump out from under my hands. I had the feeling that for the first time I had touched what it was to express myself in matter. I created my feelings, which had the shapes of characters. Suddenly I could express all the sadness that I couldn’t deal with. And at the same time I was able to express the conflict I had inside. As if I had the opportunity to see my insides carved in stone. And then I was able to understand myself much better.
  Italy helped me look at myself and my relationships more from a distance. To realize that I have value and not the relationship I create. I found some friends and dusted off my Brazilian color, which I gently dyed in Italian colors. My friends even told me that I don’t speak Portuguese or Italian, but in my own way – Baruško :-). I found myself and became more clear about what I need for myself.

  7. We want to, but we shouldn’t.

  
  When I returned from Italy, I started preparing for my final thesis. I used my Carrara pattern as a starting point, I just enlarged it to life size. Under the influence of Vojtěch Adamek the Elder, I gave the statue a dramatic modeling that fits its content. Vojtěch taught me how to approach matter and how to observe shape. He was a guide for me, together with his wife Maria and their assistant Zdenek Hejl. Thanks to their support, I completed and defended the work. I have thus closed one chapter of my life behind me. I will then miss much of this chapter later.

   

   

  8. Next to each other.
  
  During this period, I was already in a relationship with my future first husband, who loved art. And he supported me in sculpture, even after school, so that I could continue creating. I found a studio in Smíchov and worked for several years in Lesnická Street.
  After school, I started another important sculpture for me called Next to me. It was such a counterbalance to my thesis. Both in terms of modeling and content. I worked again with live models. It wasn’t until the end of my relationship with my first husband that I realized that I had created my next internal conflict. When you get used to not caring so much about yourself.
  Next to the sculptures I also created a stone sculpture next to myself at the symposiums in Litoměřice and Dobřichovice. In Litoměřice, I created Two, which gently press together, from Božanovice sandstone, which was hard and ferruginous. And then in Dobřichovice the Expectant – a baby, made of Cuban marble, which was not any softer. In the studio, I then created the last of the set of sculptures from clay, namely the Family sculpture. This sculpture was such a dot for this next stage of mine.
  I failed to start a family with Pavel. When I finished my sculpture Family in the studio, I understood that I would not give my life without my family. That I absolutely need to start a family to live. And that for this dream of mine I absolutely need to take a step that I couldn’t imagine for years. Divorce.
  At the end of our relationship, I went to Colonnáta, Italy, to create in stone for a month. This time in the framework of the South Studio with Petr, Tomáš and Eliška Váňová, with Hynk Shejbal and Dominika. Here I cut down the lonely Siren and thus internally matured to divorce.

  9. Family of four.

  
  When I went through the divorce, I calmed down inside. It stopped tearing me to pieces that I wouldn’t get to start a family in this life. I felt like I had created a new opportunity and space that I was ready to fill with an even more vivid story. I started looking for how to do it? This time I was the one looking, choosing and deciding.
  I met my current husband, Martin. The most important sculpture to create that now stood before me was my own family. There was nothing to wait for. So we started a family that grew over the course of a few years. With small children, we created the sculpture Family of Four, both modeled in clay and cut in sandstone at the symposium in Lysolajy.
  With my third son, I left my beloved studio in Smíchov and we moved outside of Prague to Leč. My priorities are out of whack. We got goats, cats, we had a dog. Life literally came alive under my hands.

  10. Barbara.

  A month after moving in, Hynek Shejbal brought me a pre-hewn two-meter sandstone statue of Saint Barbara. I finished the statue within two months and we installed it in Jaroměř in Josefov. The whole project ran for about 6 years. And he met our move to Leč beautifully. I had the opportunity to finish the sculpture in my own garden with half-year-old Robin in a stroller.
  After a few years, I built a beautiful studio in Leč. I had no idea that this studio was not only for creating sculptures and sculptures. Because my need to deal with what was going on within me grew even more. I started offering my consultations with clay, which I call Sculptural Introspection. As I work with myself, I also offer this method to the public. This work is not about the beauty of the statue, it is only about the courage to look at yourself through your body. What your hands model and not what your head thinks. Here I connected my beloved philosophy of Principles with my sculptural direction.

   

  11. First kiss
  Before I finished my studio, I created my first commission in bronze in the living room. I kind of reminisced about the time I modeled my mom’s portrait in my room. With the fact that it was clear from the beginning that the sculpture would be installed in a specific place. It was a wedding venue among the trees. So I created the First Kiss sculpture. This sculpture is important to me for several reasons. Not only because it is my first sculpture in bronze, but also because of its inner content. For me, it’s a sculpture about connection, especially the inner parts of me.
  When the client and I declared the work modeled out of sculpting clay finished, a new and very pleasant phase began for me. I invited the gentlemen from HVH Horní Kalná. The gentlemen arrived with all the equipment and made a silicone mold for the sculpture right in our living room. It was a powerful experience for me, because I did not physically participate in the demanding casting process and just observed how the form was created. Until then, I was used to casting all my sculptures myself. And First Kiss broke this habit of mine in a very pleasant way. I fell in love with bronze and the process of casting it. Only in bronze does all the modeling and the entire tone of the sculpture suddenly stand out. Only in bronze can the sculpture be seen completed and can one evaluate what man created it. It wasn’t until I settled in that I realized how important the process is. Be able to complete the sculpture and place it in the space. Settling in a space is as important to me as its creation. Only when the sculpture is set in place can it begin to live a life of its own.
  I started collaborating with Hedvika Vertelmanová, who composed a verse for the sculpture. The verse thus accompanies the sculpture:

  First Kiss

  “It is this day that love will bind us!”
  sings the clapper of the bell.
  “Forever more – till death will part us
  your heart is my home and mine yours as well.”

   

  

  12. Lovers
  Shortly after setting up Barbara, Martin and little Robinek went to Carrara for stone. My Italian friends helped me again, and I picked blocks of marble at the transshipment point in Massa. The stones were brought up to the Czech Republic by truck within a month, thanks to Ivan Rudiš, who arranged the entire transport for me. That way I could start working on my next commission, this time in marble – the Lovers sculpture. I started looking for a composition that would fit the given task. Then I modeled the statue in clay and cast it in plaster. So I prepared a model for my helpers. I didn’t cut the statue myself, students from the Hořice school helped me at the time, Lída Váňová and Metoděj Hovorka, they cut the statue for me. I could then finish the statue and fine-tune the details. The entire sculpture was created step by step in cooperation with the customer. It was such a very close and intense collaboration. During this collaboration, we were looking for exactly how the statue should look and what exactly it should express so that it can support its owner. This too is the form of Sculptural Introspection that I offer.

  This sculpture of mine is also accompanied by a verse composed for me by Hedvika Vertelmanová:

  Lovers

  Only eyes of soul that’s loving
  can reflect true depth love.
  Those who dare confess their feelings
  can become fortunate.

   

  13. Sitting
  What I love about my sculptures are the long stories that are hidden behind their creation. Each of my sculptures tells a piece of my own story. Each of them accompanied me through a piece of my life. They record the moments I was experiencing at that time. I love the process where your own sculpture starts to tell you your own story. Each sculpture carries its own unique story, each of which records much more than meets the eye.
  I experienced such a story with my first act based on a live model – Seated. I created this sculpture when I was applying to AVU. Full of vigor and sculpting enthusiasm, I modeled the statue from sculpting clay. I then cast the sculpture in plastic and gave it as a thank you for all the support on my sculpting journey to the ceramicist František Švancar, who figuratively speaking opened the door to sculpting for me.
  At the moment when I was already studying at the academy, an art collector found me, who liked the sculpture so much that he decided to just buy it. I explained to him that this statue cannot be bought anymore, because this statue already has its owner. He was not discouraged. He suggested that I have the statue cast twice more and he would buy one of the casts himself. I liked his proposal. I started to implement. And so a story was born that continued to develop over the next 24 years, when master confectioner Jana Pudilová peered into the last casting. We agreed that we need to finish the work and have it cast in bronze. And so we started the next process.

  We had the third cast first cast in wax, which I retouched together with Daniela Hašková in Horní Kalná and cast into the final material – bronze. In fact, a new statue was created. Suddenly I had a completely different feeling about this statue. Together with the owners of the U Pudilů confectionery, we permanently installed the statue in the space of their confectionery in Slané. She likes it very much there and her long story continues, creating a very pleasant atmosphere in a very beautiful space full of gastronomic art.
  This installation created a connection for me that I have been longing for for a long time, when my sculpture will be in a space where people like to go and it can then be their pleasant companion. My sculpture thus fulfills its function and I then feel the sense of why I continue to create sculptures.
  The Seated One also has its verses by Hedvika Vertelmanová:

  Sitting

  There lives a soul in human body,
  shines through every crack and tear,
  carve every dream and loss in your skin –
  for true beauty will remain.

  The garden of the confectionery is also decorated with my life-size sculpture Dream, and inside the confectionery there is also my small bronze sculpture Swing, which is freely available for sale.
  My story continues. I continue to model my sculptures and sculpt with my stories, I organize Sculptural Introspection consultations and together with my husband Martin we teach the Principles of Life seminars.