2023
concrete

Vojtěch Trocha studied sculpture at AVU and currently works in the school’s stucco workshop. In his art, a fundamental playfulness and sense for detail are naturally wedded with a profound interest in history and its tangible traces in art and craftsmanship. He is captivated by original historical artefacts, whose stories he interprets in his own particular way, with a sense of respect and humorous hyperbole. Nevertheless, he does not shy away from contemporary motifs; he is a sensitive and focused observer who seeks out ideas for his figural works from his closest surroundings, meaning family and friends. On several levels, his work touches on the contradiction between a sculpture’s surface and its interior space. Trocha’s unusual choice of materials (in addition to resins, he also works with wooden skewers, dowels, cardboard and paper) and the nature of his work, with its high demands on time and precision, reflect how much importance he places on the creative process itself. Often, his intuitive modelling of shapes grows more out of his sophisticated constructional principles than from a traditional understanding of sculpture as formed matter. He builds his shapes gradually, like neural networks, using seemingly delicate connections to tie together many different points into a solid, organic structure not unlike cellular tissue or plant matter. This structure may be a separate shape, the framework and ‘body’ of an autonomous work of art, or it may act as a skeleton or negative relief map onto which he builds the final work. Whatever the case, it always carries a message hidden within the structure of the tissue itself, one that opens up questions as to the necessity of calming and focusing, of being sensitive to fragility and solidity – not only when working with material.

In a Concrete Bed recalls Trocha’s work previously included the exhibition Experiverse (26 March – 20 August 2023, Experimental Space and Projectroom). The fragile, semi-translucent phantom of a sleeping girl – which the artist combined with a structure pasted together from bamboo skewers and hung in the gallery space – has been adapted for the outdoors in a form that brings to mind Sleeping Beauty resting on a concrete sarcophagus.