Nikola Emma Ryšavá

Nikola Emma Ryšavá is a Czech sculptor and artist. She first studied ceramics and the design of wooden toys, and then, from 2013 to 2019, sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Lukáš Rittstein’s studio.

Her sculpture focuses on imaginary, anthropomorphic figures that can be grotesque, emotional and frightening, often at a large scale. She draws inspiration from literature, from her own inner world and from an amateur interest in psychoanalysis. In recent years she has focused on relationships, intimacy and the attempt to capture what goes on inside a person; her work has taken on a therapeutic quality in the process. She works with concrete, ceramics and colour-treated objects, among other things.

She has exhibited in the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Poland and Australia. A selection: Beast of Eden — the gallery of the Michal mine (2022); Colonnade — Telegraph Gallery, Olomouc (2023); Overlap; a solo presentation of sculptures at the Municipal Theatre in Kolín. At Art in the City 2020 she showed the concrete sculpture Mermaid in the harbour at Hluboká nad Vltavou. She is represented at the Sculpture Line festival.