Jitka Petrášová

Jitka Petrášová (b. 1981) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU, 2019–2025), where she studied in the studios of Robert Šalanda, Marek Meduna, Petr Dub, and Anton Vidokle. She previously studied at the Department of Art Education, Faculty of Education, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice (2000–2008). Alongside painting, she also works as an illustrator and is co-owner of the small publishing house Knižnice Kodiak.

Jitka Petrášová possesses a gift for spontaneity with which she responds to inner and outer impulses. Gesture and colour are her key means of expression. From a cluster of events and a plane of indistinguishability, figures, animals, flowers, settings, and places emerge before our eyes, representing the symbolic dimension of the artist's personal mythology. At first glance, the world here seems almost madly cheerful; a second look, however, detects sophisticated, omnipresent mimicry bound up with social masking and communication strategies. Banality is transmuted into ambivalent, provocative études that reflect above all the fullness of human existence amid the endless phenomenal richness and diversity. Text by: Petr Vaňous