Veronika Psotková

Veronika Kudláčková Psotková (born 17 October 1981) is Czech sculptor and creator of monumental spatial installations.

Life Veronika Psotková was born on 17 October 1981 in Opava. She graduated from Mendel High School in Opava in 2001 and attended a public art school. From 2001 to 2006, she studied art teaching and mathematics for secondary education at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc. During her final year, she also studied sculpture at Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology in the sculpture studio of Michal Gabriel. While still a student , she held her first solo exhibition in 2006 and also participated in group exhibitions. Her 2009 thesis project, Grandfather's Garden — a series of 28 figures, won the Dean's Award and was exhibited at the DOX Gallery in Prague.

She has been actively practicing sports since her youth, focusing on swimming and playing basketball, volleyball, and beach volleyball, and this experience has also influenced the themes of her sculptures. Since completing her college studies, she has been a free-lance sculptor.

In 2021, the renovation of St. Joseph's Chapel in Slavětín, designed by the Tsunami architectural studio and featuring an altar designed by Psotková, received an honorable mention in the “2021 Building of the Year in the Hradec Králové Region” competition. In 2024, her design for the Slavětín church won the category for public, cultural, and infrastructure buildings and received the BIG SEE Architecture Award in Slovenia . In 2021, she also received the Public Choice Award at the Nord Art International exhibition in Büdelsdorf (Schleswig-Holstein). In 2025 she prepared multifigured composition for the Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione in Venice.

Since 2010, she has lived with her husband and two daughters in Obora near Louny, where she has a studio.

Awards 2009 Dean's Award for Thesis, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Brno University of Technology 2021 Building of the Year 2021, Hradec Králové Region, “Honorable Mention” 2021 Publikumspreis 2021, Nordart 2021, Büdelsdorf, Germany 2024 BIG SEE Architecture Award 2024. Winner in the category of public, cultural, and infrastructure buildings, Slovenia – for the conversion of St. Joseph's Chapel in Slavětín

Work Since the beginning of her career, Psotková has focused primarily on figurative art and themes such as the aesthetics of the body and the boundaries of intimacy (Time I and II, 2021). Her work draws on classical sculpture influenced by contemporary pop culture. In her interpretation, so-called gender themes take on a playful or exaggerated quality and are characterized by a light touch of irony. An important theme for her is sports and free movement liberated from gravity, as seen in her "flying dreams". She reflects on situations she experiences, and as a young mother, she also explores the themes of motherhood , closeness to children, and creating a sense of security. Separately, she also exhibits sketches and digital graphics, which serve as visualizations of her sculptural installations. The works from 2016–2019 consist primarily of reflections on the life of a woman and mother, which served as the basis for her later sculptural installations Euphoria, Connection, In Space, and Mom's Coffee.

Her realistic sculptural work in plaster, artificial stone made of Roman cement, acrylic, and bronze, she devoted herself to mainly during her studies, is very time-consuming. In an effort to lighten the form and speed up the process, she chose wire mesh on a wire frame as her material in 2007. She later discovered that it is possible to shape sculptures from wire mesh without a supporting structure onto which to mold the sculpture; instead, she cuts, shapes, and sews the wire mesh directly into "shells" — three-dimensional "drawings". The framework, which she later removes, is needed only for larger objects.

She allows her sculptures made of wire mesh to develop a natural rust patina, or she repaints them and seals the finish with varnish. For outdoor sculptures, she also uses hot-dip galvanized wire mesh (Latte and Cheesecake, Kampa, Prague, 2023). While the final appearance of the outdoor sculptures is shaped by the weather and the gradual rusting of the material (Bikini Club, DOX, 2012), indoor installations offer the opportunity to work with the specific architecture of the space, to experiment, and to make creative use of colored lighting, which sometimes emphasizes the sculpture's volume or reveals it as a spatial drawing when viewed through.

Psotková's sculptures are often created as site-specific to fit a specific location and frequently respond to existing architecture or the genius loci. At the same time, they reflect personal emotions and events, which she gives tangible form through her sculptures. As she comments: Through the gradual blending of themes and visual ideas and their refinement, I have created for myself a simple personal glossary, a concise guide for everyday life, for a complex world in which routine certainties have turned into shifting ground beneath my feet. For me, the sculptures become illustrations of this guide.

The Dive-in sculpture group was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, with figures floating in the space of a vault on the Prague waterfront, separated from passersby by glass. She was deeply affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and working on the sculpture — her first politically engaged piece — helped her overcome her initial feelings of paralysis and helplessness. In 2022, she created a sculpture titled Vinok, which hangs above Dlouhá Street near the NoD Gallery in Prague. It depicts a young woman wearing a wreath (vinok) shaped like the rising sun. Vinok is a Ukrainian symbol of the worship of Mother Earth and has also come to represent glory, victory, happiness, success, peace, chastity, youth, and femininity. The author symbolically dedicated it to all mothers in the war in Ukraine.

In 2025, she installed the monumental sculpture group Perpetuo in the Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione in Venice. The sculpture, consisting of thirty larger-than-life figures and torsos standing 6 meters tall, created from 1.5 km of wire mesh, weighs 4.5 metric tons including its supporting structure. It is her most extensive exhibition abroad to date. Psotková conceived it as a symbolic loop of scenes from social media (scrolling) , reflections of our selves and our carefully cultivated virtual identities. Visitors can enter the installation, contribute to it with their own bodies, document it, and post it on social media. The installation seamlessly explores the concept of identity, which is fleeting and may not correspond to reality at all.

Psotková, together with her husband Roman Kudláček, is the creator of a new exhibition at the Mattoni Museum in Kyselka. She also created a replica of the statue of Heinrich Kaspar von Mattoni for Kyselka, made of hardened and patinated acrylic.

Realizations 2010–2020 Aquabelles, 17 wire-frame female figures at the Forum shopping center in Liberec 2010 Nine sculptures on the water cascade at Old Town Square in Mladá Boleslav 2012 Sculpture group entitled On the Wall, garden of the Depo restaurant, Český Krumlov 2012 Rübezahl, Fries mountain hut complex, Strážné in the Giant Mountains 2012–2014 Statues of Bedřich Smetana, Ctirad, and Šárka at the recreational area in Mladá Boleslav 2013 Copy of statue of Heinrich Kaspar von Mattoni in Kyselka 2016 Gymnasts, wire figures on the facade of the Sokol Hall in Litvínov 2020 Sculptures for Šatlava at the Žlutice Museum 2020 Altar of St. Joseph, a figural sculpture group depicting St. Joseph with Mary, the Infant Jesus, and angels, in the deconsecrated Church of St. Joseph, Slavětín near Trutnov. 2022 Vinok, Dlouhá Street, Prague 2023 Latte and Cheesecake, Kampa Island, Prague 2024 Ride, Roundabout in Trutnov 2024 A Place in the Heart – Forest Cemetery memorial site, Písek 2025 Digital Swimmers, ESMO public foyer, Žilina

Exhibitions (selection) Solo 2006 Veronika Psotková: Sochy / Sculptures, Town Museum, Rýmařov 2007 Veronika Psotková: Průzkumnice / The Explorer, House of Arts, Opava 2009 Veronika Psotková: Dědova zahrada / Grandpa's Garden, DOX, Centrum současného umění / Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague 2009 Inventura – Veronika Psotková a hosté / Inventory – Veronika Psotková and Guests, Aula VUT Brno 2010 Veronika Psotková: Uzavřená společnost / Private Party, Radniční sklípek Gallery, Litvínov 2012 Veronika Psotková: Bikiny klub / Bikini Club, DOX, Centrum současného umění / Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague 2012 Veronika Psotková: Classic@., Municipal House, Opava 2013 Veronika Psotková: Bikini Club/ Sauna, (A)VOID Floating Gallery, Prague 2013 Bikini klubben och Bastu, Härjedalens kulturcentrum, Lillhärdal, Sweden 2013 Veronika Psotková: Bikini, Koktebel Jazz Festival, Koktebel/Crimea/Ukraine 2014 Veronika Psotková: Akvárium / Aquarium, The Town Hall Cellar Gallery, Litvínov 2015 Veronika Psotková: 500 m² rabicovej sietě / 500 m² of wire nettig mesh, Budatín Castle, Žilina, Slovakia 2015 Veronika Psotková: Velké prádlo, Polštáře / Big Laundry, Pillars, New Town Hall, Prague 2015 Veronika Psotková: Akvabely / Aquabelles, installation under the bridge on Rašínovo Embankment – (A)VOID Gallery, Prague 2017 Veronika Psotková: Bikini Club, Castle Litvínov 2018 Veronika Psotková: Solitéry / Standalone Pieces, Hotel Rott, Prague 2018/2019 Veronika Psotková: Napojení / Connection, Lower Vítkovice, Ostrava, Sculptures in the City, Town Gallery Trutnov 2019 Veronika Psotková: DOMA / At home, Municipal House Gallery, Opava 2019 Veronika Psotková: Klenot I / Jewel I, Muzeum papírových modelů / Museum of Paper Models, Police nad Metují 2019/2020 Veronika Psotková: Spolu / Together, DOX, Centrum současného umění / Centre for Contemporary Art, Praha 2021 Veronika Psotková: Esence / Essence, Gallery of Fine Arts in Náchod 2021 Veronika Psotková: Drátěné sochy / Wire Sculptures, Art Gallery (Světlana & Luboš Jelínek), Chrudim 2021 Veronika Psotková: Dive-in, (A)VOID Gallery, a vault on the Prague riverfront 2022 Veronika Psotková: Himmel und Erde (+Angelika Summa), Garten Pristine, Hanover, Germany 2022 Veronika Psotková: Grácie / Graces, Chapel Gallery, Valašské Meziříčí 2022 Veronika Psotková: Holky z kruhu / Girls from the Circle, DON Tábor 2023 Veronika Psotková: Dive-In/ End of the Tunnel, Machine Room, EPO1 Center for Contemporary Art, Trutnov 2023 Veronika Psotková: Kůže líná / Lazy Skin, Cultural Center Liberec-Vratislavice nad Nisou 2022/2023 Veronika Psotková: Vinok, Roxy/NoD, crossroads Dlouhá – Rybná, Prague 1 2024 Veronika Psotková: Beze strachu / Without Fear, culture center KKCG Artium, Prague 6 2025 Liberata, Stage Garden, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm 2025/2026 Veronika Psotková: Swimmers, The Dancing House, Sculpture Line, Prague 2025 PERPETUO, Chiesa di Santa Maria della Visitazione, Venice 2026 Sochy na hradě IV / Sculptures at the Castle IV -Veronika Psotková, Brno City Museum - Špilberk

Collective (selection) 2006 Figurama 06, Bratislava, Plzeň, Znojmo, Ostrava 2006 Posluchači ateliéru sochařství Michala Gabriela / Students in Michal Gabriel's sculpture studio, Doubner Gallery, Prague 2008 Hloubka a cit / Depth and Sensitivity, Castle Gallery, Uherský Ostroh 2008 Třeskutý testosteron / Explosive Testosterone, Mázhaus Gallery, Pardubice 2009 Figurama 09, Zlín, Poznań, České Budějovice, Brussels, Old Town Hall Prague 2009/2010 Dívčí sen 2009 Testosteron/ Girl´s Dream 2009: Testosterone, Regional Gallery of the Highlands Jihlava, Reduta Theatre, Brno, Synagogue Gallery, Hranice, Michal Mine, Michálkovice, Ostrava 2009 Pygmalionka a Narcis – fotograficko-sochařské projekty Veroniky Psotkové a Miroslava Jiřeleho / Pygmalion and Narcis – Photography and Sculpture Projects by Veronika Psotková and Miroslav Jiřele, Doma Gallery, Kyjov 2009 Doxnano!, DOX, Centrum současného umění / Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague 2009 Practical Theses by 2009 Graduates of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology, Aula Gallery of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno 2009 Eastnano!, Faculty of Chemical Technology, Pardubice University 2010 AS1: Práce studentů, absolventů a pedagogů Ateliéru sochařství 1 / Works by Students, Graduates, and Teachers of the Sculpture Studio 1, FaVU VUT Brno, DOX, Centrum současného umění / Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague 2011 Sochy v zahradě II / Sculptures in the garden II, Kroměříž 2012 Sochy v zahradě III / Sculptures in the garden III, Kroměříž 2014 Umění ve městě / Art in the City 2014, České Budějovice 2015 Umění ve městě / Art in the City 2015, České Budějovice 2016 Umění ve městě / Art in the City 2016, České Budějovice 2017 Umění ve městě / Art in the City 2017, České Budějovice 2025 Němá tvář / The Silent Face, Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín