Ondřej Oliva

Sculptor. He comes from a family of sculptors — his father is the academic sculptor Otmar Oliva, known internationally above all for his sacral work (including the decoration of the private papal chapel in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican for John Paul II). He studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště (under the sculptor Zdeněk Tománek), then at a private art school in Zlín (under the sculptor Radim Hanke) and from 2005 to 2010 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Jaroslav Róna’s sculpture studio, graduating in 2010. His diploma work was bought for the collection of the National Gallery in Prague (he has been represented in its collections since March 2012). He works chiefly with metal — aluminium and bronze — casting in a foundry. He makes visually appealing objects whose form is legible to a wide public, finding inspiration in ordinary things around him, in his own experiences and travels; he contrasts organic and natural shapes with industrial and symmetrical elements.

In recent years he has repeatedly returned to the symbolism of the tree as a link between heaven and earth, and to the theme of organic forms transformed by human urbanisation.

Awards and works: 2009 — 2nd place in the competition for a fountain in Černošice; 2015 — 1st place in the competition for the fountain “a place of meeting” for Uherský Brod (subsequently built); 2016 — the unveiling of the four-metre work “Tree of Knowledge”; 2017 — the gravestone of the footballer Josef Masopust at the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague.

Among other places he has exhibited at the survey of contemporary European art Ostrale 2014 in Dresden, in a group exhibition at the MAXXI museum in Rome (2015) and solo in Ostrava (2015, with a published catalogue). He is represented in collections in the Czech Republic and abroad. Solo exhibition “Objects” at the Kroměříž Regional Museum; he also exhibits at The Chemistry Gallery in Prague.