Matěj Pokorný Studio Visit

Studio Visit

Jan 31

We visited Matěj Pokorný's studio and had a brief interview with him. Dive into his art projects, including ceramic reliefs and drawings. Learn about his musical pursuits with Michael Jackson Revival and upcoming collaborations with artists like Hubert Švaříček and Anna Ruth.

You worked for a whole year on your diploma exhibition and then sold it right away at the diploma exhibition. How did it feel to lose something you'd worked on for so long?

I'm honestly quite relieved, it's two quite large and heavy reliefs. They are 220x120cm and weigh 180kg each. I didn't have much of an alternative plan for where to place them, I didn't think about it. At the moment, the collector and I are still working out where to place them, whether somewhere in her premises or somewhere in a public space, but that's all in the stars. For now, the statues are safely in storage.

Do you have any new projects?

I paint, mostly heads. I've been looking at my paintings in my new studio and I actually have 3 projects I'm working on now. I'd like to do an exhibition of pure heads, it seems like a cool subject. Then I've been working on small ceramic reliefs - I call that series "The Bodily Functions Series". I'm very much into bones, flesh, and the body, and the overall awareness of how I'm actually limited by my own body, and how I'm a fragile soft being. So I'm also still experimenting with bones, I like the idea of working with bones that I embed in clay and then use them as part of a sculpture, where I model the bones in the clay and cast them as a whole. I enjoy working with physicality in general.

Then I've been doing a lot of drawings, I have a lot of drawings and would like to give them more attention and space somewhere. I'm going through them, sorting them out. I'm trying out what frames fit them, and the one I like the most right now is a variation of two fiberglass panels bolted together. I like the idea of displaying maybe 40 drawings like that. I'd like to do an exhibition of just the drawings.

And then I have this leisure activity, I want to do some music again, if you can call it that. I have a band with Heřman Hůrka called Michael Jackson Revival and we would like to try to make another album called "Obrovská Mašinerie", so let's see how it goes.

Who would you like to collaborate with on a show this year?

Well the closest collaboration on the horizon is with Hubert Švaříček. I really like his work with metal. He will make me metal frames for some of the rougher and more expressive paintings. The first would be a painting that is a step of circumstances in HIDDEN. Then a week or so ago I had coffee in Anna Ruth's studio. About 3 years ago we had a show "Give me Some Capri Sonne" at HIDDEN Republika and we were both pleased. Our paintings complemented each other in an interesting way, expressive from a different angle, me in a rough sort of way, and Ruth in an intense and subtle way. We'd definitely like to do another show together somewhere. That is also in the stars for now.

"Give me Some Capri Sonne" Exhibition