Vendula Chalánková as a totally independent artist
Vendula Chalánková is able to stir up stagnant waters
Her extraordinary ability to interconnect her work with exaggeration, while accurately glossing everyday reality, is admirable. She makes use of a seemingly naive view of the world, an original idea and a visual shortcut that provokes a spontaneous smile, yet on another level it also contains comments that ridicule the consumer world, national character and embarrassing life situations.
"Life is a drama, but absurd," says artist Vendula Chalánková.
A luxurious and fresh exhibition called AU
What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word AU? It can be the chemical symbol of gold, or a scream of pain, or even an old Prague registration plate. However, it is never just one thing. The exhibition references to her multi-layered work.
In the luxurious Ville Pellé, many of Vendula Chalánková's works could be seen in March and April, a large installation of solar panels as well as simple comics cut out of colored papers related to the life of the author, relationships in general, and the state of society. An interesting feature of the exhibition was the reconstruction of the already once stolen cult object named Jesus's Hattrick. It's basically a sports nativity scene which contains figures such as the Three Kings, Joseph and Mary positioned on a table football playing field.
"Vendula is a solitaire, she is not subject to any herd-profiling, she does not follow trends, on the contrary, it can be said that she creates a certain trend."
This is what the curator of the exhibition, Radek Wohlmuth, said about her.
She is friends with paper
Vendula Chalánková is known for her amazing work for children. She has designed and created an animated series for them called “Sing along with us” for Czech Television. Hand-cut illustrations gave this TV show a unique atmosphere. However, a lot of hard work, hours and hours of hard work of not just cutting paper are behind it.
We asked Vendula:
What is your favourite work from the ones you presented at the show?
For me, the most recent work is the my favourite. It was 27 new things specially prepared for the exhibition - 10 new comics, the Acoustic Panels series and Folders.
From where do you draw inspiration?
From life.
Do you identify with the term unconventional artist?
Yes, I do. But last week, I had my hair cut by my friend who is a hairdresser, and I told her I wanted it as usual, so she told me I was conservative.
What figure that binds to embroidered fairy tales is dearest to you? And why is it so?
My most beloved is Little Red Riding Hood, because it was the first.
What are you unable to be without?
I'm glad that I can be without things. The answer can be Erich Fromm's question: To be or to have?
