Zdeněk Chmelař

MgA. Zdeněk Chmelař was born on 3 December 1972 in Český Krumlov. From 1990/1991 to 1994/1995 he studied at the St Agnes of Bohemia School of Applied Arts in Český Krumlov in Professor Stanislav Zadražil’s stone sculpture studio, and from 1995 to 2000 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in Professor Karel Nepraš’s studio of figurative sculpture. He works in free figurative sculpture; in subject and substance his work touches on archetypal expression. He works with classical materials — wood, subfossil material, stone, iron and tin. From 2001 to 2010 he lived in Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), where he worked with the Czech academic sculptor Jan Koblasa, then based in Hamburg, made palaeontological replicas for museums and exhibited in Kiel, Neumünster and Hamburg.

In 2010 he returned to the Czech Republic; he works in a studio in Přísečná near Český Krumlov, makes and reconstructs palaeontological finds and works chiefly with zoos. Some of his works remain permanently installed outdoors as part of symposia.

Selected works in public space: Butterfly (Český Krumlov Chateau 1998, Hamburg 2004, the garden of Hynek Fuka’s studio 2019), Sun Chariot (Stromovka, Prague 2000), Guardian (Regional Authority, České Budějovice 2008), Serpent Bearer (Žumberk fortress 2015), the sculptural group SheHe (Continuo Theatre, Malovice 2017).

At the Art in the City festival he showed the work “Portal” on the Golden Bridge in České Budějovice in 2023 and the work “The Messenger” in Hluboká nad Vltavou in 2024.