Pavla Tichá, Kamila Zemková - Pouto

This year's programme opens with a dialogue between two sisters-painters, originally from České Budějovice. Both artists accepted the invitation to a joint exhibition to return to their own work after a long hiatus. Is it possible to pick up from the time of their studies, when they shared their interests much more easily and intensively? How to grasp without sentimentality the bond that is still there, even if their paths lead in different directions? Sibling confrontation is neither easier nor less vulnerable. Like other relationships, it requires a conscious straining of the will to meet. From September to February, several visits and mutual consultations of the works in progress took place on the Prague-Rímov axis. The paintings present do not mirror these happenings in the foreground. And yet, behind the different artistic expressions, in the deeper frequencies of looking at life, we sense places of agreement.

For Pavla Ticha (*1982) the motif of complementarity has been important for a long time. In the sense of creating space for reciprocity, Pavla has been working outside the studio for several years on a colourful canvas of interpersonal relationships. At home, in a community school and most recently in a Rome centre with a gallery. This experience "on the ground" naturally translates into her work as a need to look back at the space of the void and sensitively saturate or deepen it. Intuitively, the painter returns to watercolour, using a combined technique of transparent glazes, rubberising and graphite application to harmonise the inner space of the painting.

Kamila Zemkova (*1983) is drawn to deaf places, still lifes in the immediate vicinity, which she records as she finds them, without the need to stylise herself or the scene depicted. Her fidelity to what she sees is related to the archiving of memories of the people close to her or the time of life with which the objects and places depicted are associated. The painting of these delicate loops has another side effect: it renews gratitude, and perhaps further  - as Simone Weil would write - disposes in the painter herself a space for the gift. Kamila has already had a solo exhibition at the Týn gallery in 2018.

By inviting the two sisters into a joint project, we articulate the dimension of collaboration that we are emphasizing in our 30th anniversary celebrations. Sister POUTO is part of the 12th edition of Weeks with St. Agnes.