For illustrator and painter Kateřina Dobroslava Drahošová, it is important to get as close as possible in her work to the fabric of relationships between people and nature. As a native of the Šumava countryside, views of the landscape and details of natural objects restore her sense of inner balance and intimate closeness. She experiences something similar when she focuses on people. There, too, she seeks mutual closeness and a primal understanding upon which a relationship can be built.

When she paints on canvas, she seems to rub the colors into the fabric. No thick layers or wild, gestural flourishes. In her drawings, on the other hand, she is more dynamic. The suspicion that we are actually looking at pages torn from a diary becomes all the more compelling the more we allow ourselves to be affected by the speed of the executed sketches. It is as if they were meant to capture the fleeting “situation of the moment,” which will inevitably give way to another in a short while. In any case, Kateřina Drahošová’s drawing and painting are by no means superficial. It is simply that, as an artist, she does not wish to “say” more than is necessary—to capture the atmosphere and experience of “close encounters” with the seemingly familiar.

The starting point for the exhibition at the Okraje gallery is the simple act of “braiding hair,” which is part of her daily life with her daughter. In this ordinary act, she finds the dimension of a feminine bodily ritual, one filled with touch, care, intimacy, and sharing. It is a shared moment—a moment of concentration, suspended movement, and slowed-down time. In the exhibition, however, Drahošová naturally finds parallels to this in her connection with the body of nature. Braiding thus transforms into a more general visual metaphor for connection, intertwining, and closeness—often further physically enhanced by the use of artistic materials of purely natural origin. 

Kateřina Dobroslava Drahošová (*1988) graduated from the Painting I studio at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ostrava. She currently lives in České Budějovice, from where she regularly travels home to the Šumava Mountains. Her most recent exhibition, KŮÚRA, took place last year at the Municipal Gallery in Týn nad Vltavou. In the past, she has exhibited her work in solo and group shows in the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, and Finland.   

Curator: Jiří Ptáček