Magdaléna Roztočilová: Where the Body Won’t Fit

The themes of identity, the expression of the plasticity of colours and shapes, and a creative approach to the originally conceived, fundamental morphological element of the sculptural body are the three principal sources that combine to create the living pulsation that characterises the work of Magdaléna Roztočilová. This exhibition offers an overview of the current state of her oeuvre. The contrast between the empty whiteness of the exhibition space and the concentrated intensity of the sculptures – consciously composed to evoke a sense of stasis – illustrates the artist’s present sculptural inspiration. After several years of producing drawings and paintings, these have now become spatial realisations, imbued with a focused creative energy and an excitement about a shift towards the essential core.

With her sculptures Hairy Liberty (2025–2026) and Anna’s Decision (2025–2026), the artist speaks to the transformations of her own inner world, now enriched by motherhood. She addresses the theme of “non-monumental” freedom, opting for a vibrant expression of colours and specific materials to investigate the possibilities of an alternative plasticity. Through a contemplative, focused, and prolonged process of pasting coloured strands of embroidery thread onto a figurative foundation, she indirectly references celebrated historical painting techniques. The tactile quality of the figures invites one to touch them directly. She opts for a hybrid form, the result of a gradual crystallisation of contentual sediments. She partially revisits an element of expression found in her early works, but now transformed, opening up to a qualitatively different space and time.

One outcome of the artist’s process of acquiring self-knowledge is the courage to incorporate the shadow aspects of love into her works, as seen in Shape of the Triffid (2026) and Red Mandala (2025). After a lengthy search for the positive dimension of things, there emerges a need to accept their hidden side in an effort to approach the truth of a holistic perspective.

The works in this exhibition are directly connected to the artist’s ongoing fascination with the abstracted portrait; the search for true individual forms through the principle of symmetry in the mandala; seeing the shared dimension of humanity. Self-Portrait (2026) adopts a unique formal expression, underpinned by a freedom of execution. Magdaléna Roztočilová repeatedly returns to the motif of the flower – now imbued with the spirit of Baroque spontaneity and liveliness, the principles of growth and mirroring, and the expression of magical power. She demonstrates the ability to convey the spirituality of being through intensive percepts of the fundamental levels of life. She experiences the non-linearity of time – historical paintings and the iconography she employs provide an inspiring space that allows glimpses into the kaleidoscopic mutuality of the micro-personal and the macro-human.

Through her self-portraits, she reveals the process of psychological internalisation. As if, having previously uncovered the individual layers of her personal psychology visible to an external gaze, she now allows their very core to become visible, enabling us to sense that evident diversity, difference, and polarity always spring anew from one and the same source.

MAGDALÉNA ROZTOČILOVÁ (born 1989) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (AVU) from 2007 to 2013 (with Jaroslav Róna). In 2010, she participated in an exchange programme in the visiting artist studio at AVU (with Florian Reither), and in 2011, she took part in another exchange at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (with Krištof Kintera). Since 2010, she has had numerous solo exhibitions, including Láska zocelená smrtí (Love Hardened by Death), Moon Gallery, Liberec, 2020; Okamžik proměny (Moment of Transformation), Sophistica Gallery, Praha, 2021; Dějiny se mají vyprávět jako příběh (History Should Be Told Like a Story, with Jakub Roztočil), Galerie Pekelné sáně, Kroměříž, 2024. In 2019, she was awarded first place in the competition for the bust of Milada Horáková (Krajský úřad Plzeň, realisation). She is the creator of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism (2015) and Memorial of Cardinal Tomáš Špidlík (2019), both in Boskovice. Since 2015, she has been an active core member of Studio PRÁM. Between 2019 and 2024, she was part of the curatorial team at Festival Boskovice.