This object was created by modifying an interior door – an artistic intervention that can be read from various perspectives. First and foremost, the object depicts a stylized kneeling figure. The flat surface is riddled with numerous fractures, which may symbolically represent a human life scarred by events, relationships, self-destructive decisions, and so on. However, we can also view the object on a more general level, as a platform that either opens up or closes down the possibility of communication; in this sense the fractures are a kind of sculptural description of dialogic processes.
MIKESKOVÁ ŠÁRKA
(1977) Sculptor, creator of three-dimensional objects and installations. In 2001 she graduated from the Art Department at the University of Ostrava’s Education Faculty (now the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music), having studied at Mario Kotrba’s sculpture studio. She is a teacher of ceramic design at a secondary art school in Ostrava. Her works have been featured in group exhibitions since 2000. Her first solo exhibition was in 2003, in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. Her works are regularly displayed as part of Ostrava’s “Kukačka” festival (a platform for presenting contemporary art in a non-gallery environment, in public spaces). She has participated in a range of sculpture competitions, including competitions for the forecourt of the Ostrava Gallery of Fine Arts (2004), Ostrava’s central square (for a work commemorating the legacy of Czechoslovakia’s first President T. G. Masaryk, 2011), and the Holocaust Memorial in Brno (2012). She is a long-time collaborator with the “For A Beautiful Ostrava” association, and she regularly participates in activities run by the Fiducia club and bookstore. Her works include a glass statue for the Moravian-Silesian Region’s Amber Awards, as well as several pieces displayed in public places, such as several memorial plaques in Ostrava (commemorating local cultural figures including Eva Vláhová, Jaromír and Dolores Šavrda or Karel Biňovec, as well as a plaque for a renovated sculpture by Václav Uruba), the sculptures The Spirit of Hlubina at Lower Vítkovice, and the bust of the ballet dancer and choreographer Emerich Gabzdyl in the foyer of Ostrava’s Antonín Dvořák Theatre.
