Alexandra Grüner, Klára Hartlová
Klára Hartlová & Alexandra Grüner on Intuition, the Uncanny, and Painting as Ritual
In this 43rd episode of the HIDDEN Podcast, we meet Klára Hartlová and Alexandra Grüner, two emerging voices in Czech contemporary painting whose work draws on psychology, bodily intuition, and the tension between presence and absence. Recorded in the HIDDEN AVU space during their joint exhibition Vestigial, this conversation with Filip Kartousek—joined once again by curator Kamil Princ—offers a deep dive into how emotion, theory, and intuition collide in visual practice.
This episode explores the artists’ shared background in psychology, their current studies in the Drawing Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (originally led by Jiří Petrbok, now under Alice Nikitinová and Matěj Smetana), and how they channel personal experiences—migraines, trauma, memory—into tactile visual form. Their conversation moves through themes of feminine identity, intuition as method, the risk of over-conceptualizing art, and how to keep an image “alive.”
They discuss the lingering influence of Freud’s concept of Das Unheimliche (the uncanny) and Julia Kristeva’s abjection—not as citations, but as frameworks they have internalized and embodied. Their paintings are shaped less by narrative and more by atmosphere, ambiguity, and embodied sensitivity. Kamil reflects on the exhibition as a space between object and image, between sensation and interpretation.
Topics Discussed:
Klára and Alexandra’s transition from psychology to painting
Studying at AVU in the Drawing Studio with Nikitinová and Smetana
The making of Vestigial as a shared emotional and symbolic terrain
Migraine aura, body memory, and liminal perception
The uncanny (Unheimlich) and the role of abjection in their work
The instinctive nature of image-making before language
Emotional vs. conceptual interpretation
The weight of artistic production in a male-coded lineage
Painting as ritual and gesture
The place of fear, repetition, and healing in the studio
Key Quotes from the Episode:
“It’s not about understanding the work. It’s about feeling when it starts to breathe.”
“Sometimes the image comes before language. And sometimes, language ruins it.”
“Migraine isn't only pain. It’s also vision.”
“We don’t want the viewer to decode. We want them to resonate.”
Guest Information:
Klára Hartlová and Alexandra Grüner are visual artists currently studying in the Drawing Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Both originally trained in psychology, their works navigate subconscious territories and bodily states. Hartlová’s practice often revolves around fragmented gestures, figural dissolution, and haptic textures. Gruner’s paintings are rooted in themes of repetition, shadow memory, and dreamlike perception.
Their recent joint exhibition Vestigial at HIDDEN AVU was a culmination of their ongoing dialogue—personally and artistically—and was curated by Kamil Princ. Rather than illustrating theory, their works embody it, tracing the edges of what can be felt but not named.
This conversation is in Czech.
