Katalogues

Jindřichův Hradec Castle Gallery, 2001

Physically expressed thoughts have always been and remain the basis of sculpture. The human figure is the impulse of the sculptural shape; sculptures speak through the body. Šárka Radová has the talent for inventive modeling, and is able to express her feelings, opinions and life attitudes through sculpture. Her oeuvre is marked by the ability to communicate meaning. She creates sculptural groupings in which individual figures are connected. In Generation the figures are stacked one upon another according to a generational progression, each successive generation standing upon the shoulders of the predecing one. In another variant of the human pyramid, Successful, human bodies pile up into a mass. But the position of the topmost figure is unsteady: He who rises the highest has the farthest to fall. The sculpture Summit bears similarity to a massive ziggurat created from paper: At the peak are several elite individuals who decide about the fate of those who are the literal base of human society.

The sculptress chooses materials that are malleable and at the same time durable, maintaining their form yet allowing for exacting detail. From bisque she modeled the life-sized sculptures Youth and Sitter. After firing at high temperatures, sculptures from this material achieve a stonelike hardness, similar to that of fine-grained marble. Because of the qualities of stone, which demands that the artist chisel away matter, she created several sculptures from spongelit, which calls for a cleaner and finer cutting. The last work, Six Stops, charts the course of the artists carving away of material, during which the sculpture takes on an ever more defined shape. The material she uses, which is seemingly fragile, is fortified with additional ingredients and in its hardened state is unbreakable. It is the paper material she uses, which has the further merit that despite its strength it isn't hard, that allows the artist to work in a large format. Moreover, it is given to coloration, and in its coloration and structuring it contrasts with the fine, white bisque. With the motif of a amusement among girls with a puppet, El Pelele was inspired by Goya's cartoon . The lightness of the bouncing puppet suggests exactly the use of papier máché. From this material she also created the large-format sculpture Shadow; likewise the grotesque-themed With a Leg in the Clouds.

Šárka Radová is interested in that which happens in the world and with the world. She perceives it as a labyrinth with a necessary paradise - the heart. She is discerning and has a mode of expression that is solely her own, an original sculptural language.