Boundaries of Serendipity

"The exhibition brings a fusion of their work, focusing on the evolution of the investigation while also deeply considering the process as a key aspect of art making. The presented works bring together material, texture, color, and the significance of these elements to explore and expand the boundaries of working with materiality and exploring the dynamics, rhythm, and depth of objects," says exhibition curator Alina Lis.

Each of the artists here presents a series of works that straddle the line between a spiritual act and an experiment with technology. Františka Benčátová, a graduate of the Textile Studio, is exhibiting her diploma project Basket-like, basket-what, basket-why..., which explores the possibilities of jacquard fabric. Her main goal was to explore the texture of the fabric and its formation. The artist disrupts the traditional perception of the two-dimensionality of textiles and transforms them into three-dimensional objects, inspired by baskets and their production.

Her sister Paula Benčat'ová, a graduate of the Ceramics and Porcelain Studio, presents sculptural objects-paintings on the border between craft and abstraction. In her projects she explores the limits of ceramic matter through unconventional processes, characterized by a meditative approach, material fragility, lightness, playfulness and joy of the moment.

Karolína Kučerová, although a student of the Ceramics and Porcelain Studio, uses a wide range of materials in her work. Her work is on the border of sculpture and she achieves delicacy even with hard materials. Her glass and ceramic objects evoke an impression of smoothness and softness through their shaping, colour and texture. The artist puts her own state of mind and personality into each of her works.

The exhibition as a whole represents the combination of three unique approaches into one coherent project that deals with the intimate relationship between the artist and the material. This concept develops and offers the viewer smaller, enclosed spaces to perceive the artists' work, allowing for an undisturbed viewing of the stories behind the exhibited works. The exhibition aims to explore different forms of material work and craft techniques, while bringing a suspension and reinterpretation of the moment.

The exhibition Boundaries of Serendipity will be on display at the UM Gallery until October 12th.

Františka Benčaťová is a Slovak artist and designer. A graduate of the Textile Studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague  (2023), she specialises in jacquard weaving, influenced by her study stay in Lodz, Poland (2020), but especially by her year-long study stay in Ghent, Belgium at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK, 2022), where she studied under Esther Van Schuylenbergh. Her professional journey was also influenced by an internship with Dutch designer Simone Post. In Františka Benčátová's work, one can perceive a strong sense of material, playfulness and storytelling, distinctive colour and an eye for detail. In her work, Františka experiments with the possibilities of material and technology and explores the possibilities of crossing their boundaries. The symbiosis between past, present and future, speculative and memory, craft and digitalisation are significant elements of her work. She is currently working as a textile designer in a textile company in the Czech Republic.

Paula Benčaťová is a Slovak artist and designer based in Prague. In 2024 she successfully completed her studies at the Studio of Ceramics and Porcelain at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. She began to develop a freer and sculptural relationship with materials and a conceptual approach in her work in more depth during her year-long internship at Oslo National Academy of the Arts - KhiO in Norway, under the guidance of Martha Johnslien and Caroline Slotte, which she completed in 2021. Paula's work combines a distinctive poetics and subtlety that highlights her attention to detail and her constant interest in exploring the limits of ceramic the material in the context of an investigation of gravity or thin-walled structures of ceramic objects transformed into a color palette.

Karolína Kučerová is an American artist of Czech-Slovak origin living in Prague. Since 2020 she has been studying at the Studio of Ceramics and Porcelain at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague, but her work also draws on her studies at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem (2022), where she studied working with glass (blowing, fusing and cold working) and also took a course in drawing and working with wood. Thanks to the opportunity to study at the Kyoto University of the Arts (2023) in Japan, Karolína Kučerová had the time and space to observe her thoughts and her surroundings and began to explore her relationship to the medium and to conceptual work in depth. Her current work explores the possibilities and limits of the plasticity of the clay material and through this understanding she tests its softness.