Ivana Šrámková – Animals & Other Dudes
Key Points
Born 1966 in the Czech Republic // 1976–1980 High School of Applied Arts for Glassmaking, Železný Brod // 1981–1987 Academy alf Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, the studio of Prof. Stanislav Libenský, Prague (Czech Republic) // Film: Ivana Šrámková: On My Work and Inspiration, Corning, NY, Corning Museum of Glass, 1991 // Ivana Šrámková has been working as a sculptor, glass artist, and painter since 1988
Public Collections (selection)
Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague // National Gallery, Prague // The North Bohemian Museum, Liberec (Czech Republic) // Victoria and Albert Museum, London (United Kingdom) // Corning Museum of Glass, Corning NY, (USA) // Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne (Swiss) // Ulster Museum, Belfast (Ireland) // Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Hokkaido // Toyama Glass Art Museum, Toyama (Japan)
Ivana Šrámková seeks her inspiration from indigene people or from the antiquity. For her monumental sculptures the artist partially renounces the strong characteristics of the material glass and takes instead advantage of its colourfulness, whereby the translucency of the glass is limited, due to her manner of modelling the object’s surface. She expresses her own philosophy in her sculptures of human beings and animals.
Ivana Šrámková about her work: My sculptures are calm, dignified and somewhat monumental figures. They are non-flashy introverts, who do not vie for a top spot in a beauty contest. Nevertheless they are strong personalities. They do not harm or aggravate, but there is something disquieting in them, which makes you think. It is difficult to translate these feelings into words; maybe it isn’t even possible. And that may be good. I can analyze the sculptures structurally, but verbally I can only approximate their message. We perceive and experience art subjectively through the sensors of our soul.
I often pare things down to a monumental geometric simplicity. I have been led to that partially through my work with glass, the methods of its production and technological demands. I tend not to use the optical properties of glass, and try to avoid its distracting effects. I use glass mostly for its color palette, the versatility of its surfaces, and for the light transmission it affords through the sculptural mass. Formally my figures are inspired by the art of indigenous peoples, Egypt and antiquity. I am interested in their inner character and work to capture it in my sculptures. Sometimes I fail and sometimes I succeed. Some of my sculptures stay in my studio for a long time and it can take months or even years before I understand how they need to be finished.
