Julie Kopová (1995) graduated in 2021 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she studied under Jiří Sopko, Robert Šalanda and Vladimir Skrepl. In her art, she works loosely and generously with the tools of the traditional artistic media of drawing and painting, using a purely visual vocabulary to articulate her reflections on our state of being. Through the use of specific colors and dynamic gesture, she captures the presence of the moment while simultaneously seeking to capture space in its universal nature. The starting point for her exploration of its unboundedness was the landscape. Kopová first explored the subject of space through lines drawn in oil pastel dynamically permeated the painted surface in her graduation work titled –∞/+∞ – most clearly in one of the series‘ eight paintings, Buzz. Describing her first big project, Kopová says: „Within the context of this abstract subject, I would like to explore the contrast between the concepts of maximum and minimum and fullness and emptiness on the individual and social level, which expressed their relationship to the idea of infinity.“ the abstract was also defined by sound/music, which she composed as a part of the series. At the most abstract of all art forms, music holds an exclusive place in Kopová’s exploration of spatial boundaries. It forms a direct part of her drawings in the form of the rhythm of the strokes and agglomerations of lines. Last year, Kopová followed on her earlier work with a series of large-format oil pastel drawings on paper called Hybrid Landscapes. In these works, the drawn gesture – often expressed by an unsettling color scheme – determines the space with the help of motion and thus contrasts with the emptiness of the white paper. Describing this part of her work, Kopová says, „I explore maximum and minimum in a metaphorical and abstract manner and focus on the painted visualization of rhythm, which is an integral part of music and poetry.“ This strong emotion and spontaneous level determines the mood of the final outcome, which is also encapsulated in the work’s title (she exclusively gives her works English names). The present sense of unease reflects the perception of the world.

Curator: Adriana Primusová