ARTIST IN FOCUS: Meet Anna Hulačová. A sculptor translating traditional crafts into contemporary art.

“Artist in Focus” is a new column that shines a light on individual artists by showcasing their portfolios and artworks, exploring their inspirations and personal journeys. As our team travels to various art fairs, festivals, art weeks, and biennales, we uncover emerging talents and share their stories, giving our readers an authentic glimpse into the artists who are shaping the contemporary art world today.

Anna Hulačová (b. 1984) is a Czech artist, who merges ancient symbolisms with contemporary art. By using a wide range of traditional sculptural techniques, she corresponds with her roots as a graduate of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts with a degree in sculpture and intermedia work. While by combining brutalist features, such as concrete with organic forms, she points to the hybrid nature of modernity, where distant forms merge and mutate, forming a new reality. As such, Hulačová’s work has a distinct apocalyptic feel, heightened by her use of different textures and materials. 

In the artist’s world, the themes freely inspired by the 1990s Western mysticism, UFOs, crop circle iconology, Czech mythology and brutalism intertwine, translating well into the form of contemporary art. She forms a distinct artistic language – rich and symbolic, proving that nature is messy yet beautifully relentless in its adaptability and creativity. Organisms grow to adapt, with the surroundings transforming into a kind of sci-fi landscape. The viennacontemporary fair audience had a chance to see Hulačová’s latest work, Begonia and Alien Bees, in which she expands on the topic of beekeeping, invoking these very dystopian and utopian sentiments. All of her works – endlessly captivating to the viewer, even though the artist fully embraces the idea of an inevitable end. Yet she gracefully searches for new alterations and ideas to give us both hope and survival tools.

Anna Hulačová is represented by the Pedro Cera Gallery.