2024-2025

handwoven fabrics

cotton, linen, silk, wool

During the lengthy and meditative (not always, but still) process of weaving, I kept thinking intensely about my first period and the confusion and shame that surrounded it. It feels entirely illegitimate to view menstruation as something unnatural, as something “feminine,” or as something that should be removed from public space and public discourse. Sadly, although often cloaked in different language, the belief persists that menstrual blood is “unclean.”

And yet the menstrual cycle is essential to the survival of humankind—so why isn’t it regarded as something useful, natural, admirable, and, above all, human? 

2025

serie of paper object 

silk, abaka cellulose, text

These torn, egg-shaped paper forms scattered across the floor—resembling broken shells—are meant to evoke emptiness and uncertainty. The act of layering paper pulp onto molds and then peeling off the shells already feels like a gesture—something that used to be inside is now gone, and its absence is what makes its presence palpable.

Eggs, traditionally a symbol of Easter, represent birth and fertility. But what’s crucial here is the absence of the egg’s interior, which is instead filled with written slogans and fragments of text that overwhelm public space.

Words burden the eggs—often wounding ones. These words become a kind of weight, keeping the shell on the ground.

How could it possibly rise freely when it’s so heavily burdened with all the normative roles it’s expected to fulfill? 

2025

fabric woven on a digital Jacquard loom; assemblage of thread remnants used in warping the loom, embroidery 

linen, tencel, wool

The fabric contains a woven pattern that is nearly invisible—it only reveals itself upon close inspection. The motif, based on a classic anatomical illustration of the female reproductive system, repeats rhythmically like a traditional floral fabric design.

But something is off—the reproductive system is incomplete. One fallopian tube is missing; I lost it years ago due to an infection.

It’s a defect that is hidden, easy to forget about, yet ever since, the question of motherhood has hung over me with greater intensity.

A small pile of neatly arranged thread remnants bears two red embroidered crosses—laparoscopic scars that seem to seep from beneath the fabric. Though these are threads, in this installation, they could also be read as gauze or medical textiles.

They are meant to symbolize both the healing of wounds and the persistent uncertainty that seeps through. 

2024

hand crochett, digital collage, spoken authorial text

cotton, digital print, audio

The work reflects the connection between the landscapes of the Canary Islands and the themes of Wojciech Tochman’s Crowing of Roosters, Crying of Dogs, which depicts the lives of mentally ill people in contemporary Cambodia. During a six-hundred-kilometer journey across three islands, the artist perceives the landscape as a symbolic prison – cacti attacked by pests lose their thorns, protection, and sharpness, just as mentally ill people lose their freedom and the ability to make autonomous choices and think freely. The delicate, heavy, yet starkly beautiful structures evoke the intersection of beauty and pain, life and destruction.

The crocheted net references a long, continuous path made of many loops – much like the lives of those seeking a way to freedom. The work invites reflection on the slow, subtle movement of time, landscape, and human fate, raising questions about freedom, care, and the fragility of life. 

2023

chemlon fibre

The subject of this work is aphasia—a loss or impairment of speech caused by damage to the language centers of the brain. Aphasia does not affect a person’s intelligence and can range from mild word-finding difficulties to the complete loss of speech and comprehension.

This piece focuses primarily on a situation where a person is thinking clearly but is unable to express themselves in words. Does this place them in an imaginary cage? How do we perceive such a person? Do they seem “foolish” or confused to us at first glance? What is the connection between our outward impression and the way we communicate? Words carry enormous power—and those with aphasia lose access to that power.

The installation consists of three busts made from chemlon fiber. The first two are loosely inspired by Bruce Willis—not because of his fame or appearance, but because in the autumn of 2022, he decided to end his acting career due to aphasia. With that decision, he brought this still-overlooked condition into public awareness. Since then, however, his condition has worsened significantly, and in February, his family announced that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. The two busts are intended to loosely reflect the progression of the illness and how our inner experiences can shape our outward appearance and the way we are perceived by others. The third bust, titled I Would Like to Talk with Him, is a self-portrait. 

2023

water plants, aquarium

A bust placed inside an aquarium, made from a fast-growing aquatic plant, is titled Overgrowth. The central theme of the work is the transformation of a human being through the experience of mental illness.

At first, the shape of a human head—distinct and recognizable—emerges from the plant material. But over time, the plant begins to grow wildly, gradually obscuring and distorting the original form. The face becomes unrecognizable, consumed by organic overgrowth, until it disappears entirely.

The work is meant to capture this slow erasure of human features—symbolizing the process of losing one’s sense of self and the feeling of being misunderstood, which is often tied to mental disorders.

The aquarium serves as a metaphor for a kind of confinement—both real and imagined. People living with mental illness often find themselves trapped within societal limitations, unable to exist freely. The plant, left unchecked, would continue to grow indefinitely. But within the aquarium, it is forced to conform to a predefined, restricted space. 

2022

golden wires, 3D print, dead flies, electric motor

Flies dressed in gilded sweaters circle an object loosely inspired by the structure of a gold crystal. The crystal, which draws attention with its ostentatious appearance, is in fact coated with imitation gold.

The housefly — a cosmopolitan species found almost everywhere in the world — is often despised and considered inferior, an irritating intruder. Yet, does a fly cease to be a fly when dressed in a golden sweater? Can we look at it through the same lens as the saying “clothes make the man”? Or is the golden garment rather a kind of straitjacket?

The work takes inspiration from transmission electron microscope images of gold and from research into metal crystal structures. The nanoworld remains invisible to the naked eye, just as in this installation, we can hardly tell real gold from its imitation without the help of technology. 

2022

electroforming

copper, wires

“Autropotrait” consists of electroformed casts of selected body parts that have been shattered and reassembled into a new form. Like a drop of water contracting into a sphere under surface tension, the figure becomes compact — seemingly more resistant to external pressure — yet that same pressure leaves its marks within the internal landscape.

Copper, one of the most conductive metals, renders the object highly responsive to its surroundings. And still, the figure remains an empty shell, a fragile boundary between the inner and outer worlds. The network of wires that once carried current to the cast forms becomes a kind of inner nervous system — a trace of both vitality and vulnerability. 

2020

chemlon fibre, textile, mixed media

This series of paintings is based on a loose paraphrase of Loos‘ Pilsen interiors. The expensive materials leave a bad taste in the mouth when one learns of the tragic fate of the Jewish

families for whom the lavish interiors were designed. The rooms are depicted on fabric made from an old straw mattress, most likely from the interwar period. Chemlon, a synthetic fiber

invented in the Czech Republic during World War II, was used to create the space. There was much hope for it at the time, but after the war, Chemlon became forbidden and inferior material. 

2023

scoby, cast iron

Collaborative project with Matej Plachý.

The loudspeaker as a technological and structurally contradictory object.

Klára and Matej move on the borders between design and both applied art and fine art. The collaborative character of their work reflects the need for subversion, for setting oneself against the rigid rules of design or a clearly defined task. Together, they feel the need to explore possibilities that go beyond the straightforwardness of utility. They seek the limits of sustainability, the last moment before the collapse. Not only the inevitable one, like the ecological crisis or the perhaps still reversible-one like mass production and compliance to the given task.

To connect the work with natural materials, which are available but all the more fragile and more challenging to process. It is precisely this aspect of manual labor and craftsmanship that is present in their work. Whether it is the casting of a cast iron frame, where the positives are first hand-modelled, then molded and finally casted, or the cultivation of scoby, which requires regular care, sterility and time.The creation of the membrane, takes several days during which the „mushroom“ is fed in order to grow, like all living things, but at the end of this process there is no reproduction but an extinction.

- text by Maria Jancová 

2021

porcelain

The present raises questions of identity. Trapped in social bubbles, we keep ourselves in our own truth, and the algorithm of social networks reinforces this phenomenon.

In a year when the world struggled with the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on personal contact increased, widening the gap between people. We have hardly been forced to confront differing opinions. Do we even want to break out of our social bubbles? Do we deliberately close our ears to other opinions?

The work contains three porcelain sculptures, three people who are (not) trying to break out of the mass that defines and limits their personal space. 

2021

electroforming

copper, wires, time-lapse video

“I paint myself because I am often alone and because I am the subject I know best.”

— Frida Kahlo

The electroplated self-portraits on wax prints evoke emotions emblematic of the COVID-19 pandemic era — loneliness, technological overwhelm, disgust, confusion, and decay. The protruding copper wires are not merely symbolic; they also served a practical purpose, connecting the wax moulds to the laboratory power source. As the process unfolded, the copper appeared to “grow” from the moulds, gradually spreading across the entire conductive surface.

The accompanying time-lapse videos, following the work I am the subject I know best, document the electroforming process itself: one mask dissolves while another emerges. This transformation mirrors the subject’s inner dialogues — a play of ambivalence, melancholy, and self-reflection.