Jan Kaláb

Jan Kaláb (*20 June 1978, Prague), known by the names Splesh, Point and Cakes, is a Czech visual artist working in graffiti, street art, mural art, painting and sculpture. He first came across spray paint and graffiti in 1993 at the age of fifteen, made his first piece that same year and his first train panel in 1994. He is among the pioneers of the Czech graffiti scene of the 1990s, when he founded the iconic DSK crew. A decisive moment was his trip to New York in 2000 (with the writers Romeo and Ceey), where the crew painted the local subway. In 2001 he pushed the limits of graffiti and became, in his own words, one of the first artists in the world to make three-dimensional 3D graffiti. He studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague — spending a year in Eva Jiřičná’s architecture studio before moving to Jiří Beránek’s sculpture studio — and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Jitka Svobodová’s drawing studio; he graduated with the work Coloured Pavements (2005) and completed his studies at the Academy in 2006 (MgA.) as the first graffiti writer ever to do so.

In 2006 he initiated and co-founded Trafačka — an association and centre for young art in Prague-Vysočany (the conversion of a former transformer station into a gallery and studios), where he worked as a resident, programmer, event organiser and curator of exhibitions. In 2008 he initiated the first Czech festival of graffiti and street art, NAMES, and held his first solo exhibition.

His work grows out of architectural principles; it is characterised by a use of the circle as a carrier of mass vibrating with colour, by organic and abstract shapes evoking biological forms or the macrocosm, by geometric compositions and by strong colour gradients. He has held more than twenty solo exhibitions (2008–2016) and many group shows across Europe, North and South America and Asia; he took part in painting DOX (with Tron and Pasta), in the Metropolis exhibition at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, and in murals at the Ponec Theatre, Na Zderaze, Opatov and elsewhere. In 2010 he won the UniCredit Bank “Art Prague Young Award”.

At Art in the City 2020 he showed the work “Point Spaceship” in České Budějovice (plywood, the blind arm of the Malše).