Jolana Škachová

Jolana Škachová (b. 1998) is a young artist at the outset of her professional career and a graduate of two Prague art schools, the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (UMPRUM) and the Academy of Fine Arts (AVU). It was while studying at AVU that she turned from painting back to drawing with coloured pencils, which at the time restored a sense of ease and freedom that she has kept in her work to this day. The chosen texture, format and colour of the paper form the setting into which she places the rough outlines of her idea, which gradually sharpen as she draws. She speaks of her works more as objects, “sculpting” the individual shapes with careful pencil strokes into their final form and coexistence. Working with a basic colour palette, she layers lines over one another dozens of times to achieve the desired tone. This gives her constant control over every movement, and for her the process is a patient collaboration. She draws inspiration from her surroundings and from a continuous stream of images and thoughts, which she brings together in finished scenes infused with the surreal and an almost metaphysical quality.