The lifelong creative output of Jitka Svobodová could be described in several words – drawing, object, sensibility, quintessence, concentration, time… In the first half of the 1970s the artist decided to focus on drawing; through this medium, in two-dimensional as well as three-dimensional works, she dealt with questions related to both the act of creation and the process of learning.

At the start of every drawing, there is a concentrated observation. And how the smallest detail and even the realisation that all external characteristics of the object or phenomenon can be overlooked. For this exploration, she chose seemingly the simplest motifs from the surrounding world – yet her drawings of chairs or tables are not drawings of real chairs and tables, they are not a transcription of reality. They are the essence of an object, they came into existence through the interconnection of its extrinsic and intrinsic existence.

Jitka Svobodová expresses herself in series’ or thematic sets in which she continuously contemplates the relationship between the detail and the whole, the three-dimensionality and the two-dimensionality of an object, the materialisation and the disappearance. The artist relies on a minimal means of expression, the drawing gesture itself is calm, restrained, but with strong inner dynamics. The possible variations of drawing are also spatial works that is the spatial drawing – wire objects accentuating the relationship between an object and the surrounding space. Jitka Svobodová never abandoned the direct connection with the theme; the content, no matter how changed, is always present. >

The exhibition of the most recent works of Jitka Svobodová in Museum Kampa sums up all important approaches of her existing creative output and shows the foundations of future developments. The series of Curtains came into existence thanks to a long-standing observation of striped curtains in a room of her flat, of the way they react to light, to wind, to their surroundings. Another group of exhibited works are Tables. Some time ago, Jitka Svobodová abandoned, as a limiting burden, the traditional perspective; the basic shape of the tables is built up in two dimensions and related to the pictorial surface itself. A new element in her creative output is the blending of three-dimensional and two-dimensional drawings. The individual components in her Dwelling series (2014) are made of bent wire. A wire does not allow for the lightness of a pencil line produced by hand – its weight and certain coarseness is, nevertheless, another possible way to express an a priori essence of the shape of an object. A new type of introduction of a physical object into the space of a drawing is represented by the threads and pins in the Chair (2017). Jitka Svobodová started as a painter of abstract landscapes and elements. After 1972 she abandoned this direction and focused mainly on the representation of objects. In recent years, however, she is, after a long time, returning to nature. Trees (2015) as well as Trees and Clouds (2015) represent a beautiful synthesis of her work, both thematic and formal.

Helena Musilová
Curator

Museum Kampa - Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation