Jan Kovářík

Jan Kovářík (*28 March 1980, Kyjov) is a Czech sculptor; he lives and works in Prague. From 1994 to 1998 he studied the artistic working of ceramics at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště. From 1998 to 2002 and again from 2004 to 2005 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Professor Jindřich Zeithamml’s sculpture studio, spending two semesters in between (2002–2003) in Professor Milan Knížák’s intermedia studio — he calls the time with Knížák a decisive experience. He describes Zeithamml as a strict but fair teacher with whom he could do whatever he wanted. During his studies at the Academy he discovered the world of geometric abstraction, made objects from pasta and shells and looked for proportions and relationships between things before returning to work with material. He works from conceptual thinking, using both classical and synthetic materials, and even with so-called base materials he consistently strives for a perfect resolution of form.

His particular formal language reveals various structures and offers insight into the nature of the materials themselves; he explores the laws of form and space intuitively. He says himself that “human and social affairs are not much reflected in his sculptures” — for years he has watched nature and the stars, kept shrimp in an aquarium at home and examined moulds under a microscope.

He has exhibited solo since 2002; more recent exhibitions include “Moments of Landscape” (Belák–Kovářík, Curator Contemporary, Prague) and “The Impermanence of Being” with Jan Soumar (Pradiareň 1900, Bratislava). He has taken part in a number of group exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad (including the National Gallery Prague and Art Basel). He is the author of the Monument to Maria Theresa by the Powder Bridge in Prague 6 (competition announced in 2013, by Jan Kovářík and the architect Jan Proksa, unveiled in October 2020) — a 5.5 m tall sculpture on a plinth of lightweight concrete with a core of a special polymer mix; it is the first monument to Maria Theresa in the Czech Republic. Other works: an angel for a Prague monastery (2024), water features in Za Brumlovkou street (2023, with Aulík Fišer architects). Represented in the collections of the National Gallery Prague, GASK Kutná Hora, the Gallery of the Moravian Slovak Museum and other regional galleries.