Veronika Holcová's imagery is often viewed through the prism of
Surrealism and its legacy in the art of recent decades.
The imaginative nature of her paintings and drawings undoubtedly encourages this,
as well as certain similarities with the works of renowned local and
foreign surrealists such as Max Ernst and Josef Istler.
The immersion into fantasy worlds, which Holcová excels at, is, however, possible
can also be seen through the lens of the "fairy tale". With the exhibition "Niche and Empire" we construct
a kind of fictional space into which the audience enters with the artist.
Emphasizing Holcova's "fairy tale" dimension allows us to deprive her
her artwork from the exaggerated respect it can command.
the idea of her visions emerging from the depths of the human subconscious, and
to offer instead the optics of an experience close to everyone's
of supra-rational thought and imagination. Instead of a fantasy
we offer the fantastical and the narrative with which she uses her paintings
operates.
The magical apparitions that have appeared on the
her paintings, the condensed ornamental spaces, but also
the decorativeness of her artistic space itself. As if it
is a world that is both observed and invented by an imaginary Nika, an analogue of
of the great heroines of fairy tales from Little Red Riding Hood to Alice to
to Scheherazade. Of course, even this change of perspective doesn't take away
Holcová's works of mystery and still leaves room for
a full spectrum of emotional experiences. Their connection to our
personal experience, however, takes place along different paths: through projections and
dreams we remember from childhood, and through the needs of adults
to experience the world as a magical place that is never so safe and
as a weekend shopping trip.
Jiří Ptáček