Glass Line
{Klára Horáčková Klára Horáčková Klára Horáčková Klára Horáčková Klára Horáčková Klára Horáčková

Klára Horáčková

She graduated from the Secondary School of Glassmaking in Kamenický Šenov, then from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the Studio of Glass under the guidance of prof. Vladimír Kopecký. She completed a six-month internship in the Atelier statue there with prof. Jiří Beránek and one semester at the Wetterhoff School of Art and Design in Hämeenlinna, Finland. The year 2008 was the beginning of her teaching career, when at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design she first worked as the head of a glass workshop and since 2012 she has been an assistant professor at the head of the Glass Studio of prof. Rony Plesl. She has had over forty solo and group exhibitions under her belt. She has exhibited her work in Prague, London, Eindhoven, Paris, Milan, Basel and Madrid, and has participated in many glass symposia both in the Czech Republic and abroad. Her artefacts adorn private and institutional collections in the Czech Republic, Egypt and Germany.

If we wanted to find a distinctive artistic expression and a typical approach of this author, we would find ourselves at a crossroads leading in more directions. In addition to free creation, she also creates objects on the border of applied creation, i.e. design. She makes experiments with unusual types of molten glass. In one of her creative stages, she primarily used black glass rods sintered in a furnace into a mould and modified over a burner, in another stage, she focused on sheet (float) glass. Recently, she has again created monumental mirror surfaces reflecting the surrounding space. She does not keep repeating one single approach. Creative freedom, although often redeemed by complexity, doubts and difficulties, is essential for it. She also feels failures are needed: "The author has to create, even if he is not one hundred percent sure. The reward is that he will find ways he would not have seen if he had not started. It is important for me not to be treading water, to keep evolving, keep discovering. To capture the moment between daydreaming and being awake when the mind is teeming with images and shapes and hidden meanings and connections turn out. I enjoy when my objects look natural, as if they grew or crystallized on their own and I just discovered them somewhere. Every time I rescue them from the mould, I feel like a treasure hunter.

All the techniques used by the author are time consuming, the works go through a lengthy creative process. Nevertheless, she keeps using these techniques. The chosen way of working provides more control over the overall shape and details. She consciously avoids being too obvious, underling the beauty of glass, she does not think in simplified context. She tends to use more minimalistic aspects, yet her work evokes a strong emotional response. They are on the edge between the natural and the artificial, between the realistic and the fictional. The viewer perceives them as material, and at the same time discovers something spiritual in them. They hide the ability to transform into new correlations the circumstances and opinions generally experienced, to conduct a dialogue in a broader context. "Many of my objects express geometric, optical, physical and relational laws and phenomena, but I am also interested in sociology and the human mind. It's my way of learning about the world and universal principles that are timeless. "

With this optics, it is desirable to look at the exhibited objects, which Horáčková mostly created for the Czech Glass, Quo Vadis ?! installation. In the indicated contexts, they take on completely different meanings than at the first, exclusively sensory contact.

The theme of the installation Dogma is "inconspicuous" propaganda, the principle of deliberate manipulation of the views of society or the individual from the position of power and influence. Dogmatism, the aim of which is to fix the impulses and prevent their further examination and reassessment. "The morphology of objects is a blend of the visual of a decorative frame, which usually underlines the quality of the image (whether real or imagined), in the figurative sense also opinion or vision and tools - a try square and water level. In everyday life, they serve as aids to a more accurate grasp and description of reality, we rely uncritically on them as an unquestionable certainty, and we do not realize that what we automatically consider to be true sometimes deliberately misleads us. The delusion is hidden here in small water levels - spirit levels that show an ideal, balanced state, even when it is obviously impossible - it is not a reality, but only an illusion. What is obviously false and untruthful, is presented as the truth and the right thing. From the introduced fact, our attention is diverted and distracted by gold and the surface, or rather superficial decoration of objects.

The White Wreath was created as a counterpoint to the author's previous work - The Black Wreath . It represented a kind of dark side of success, victory at any cost, regardless of the consequences. The White wreath, on the other hand, represents a positive, radiant, almost ostentatious position of prosperity, victory, success. But even this status is not without its dark side, without risk and conflict. At first glance, the wreath looks festive, ostentatious, alluring, but in reality it is fragile and hurtful when touched. But it requires careful handling.

Purple Microcosm is the latest work by the author from the Microcosm series. It characterizes the blending of two opposites - pure geometry created by man and flora growing freely in the wild. It is formed as if by crystalline structures enclosed in a smooth elliptical shell. During its formation, the solid turned into a liquid and again back to a solid state. This whole principle is evident in the structure of the object, it contains both of these elements. On the one hand, it evokes geological processes - crystalline drusen, on the other hand, it resembles tufts of grass, water seaweed, symbiont mushrooms - everything what is naturally assembled into larger units under the influence of natural forces in the landscape.