Zdeněk Tománek: Something

After a collective decision to include, once a year, an exhibition by an artist over the age of fifty in the PRÁM Studio program, it quickly became clear that the first person to be invited would be sculptor, painter, and educator Zdeněk Tománek. Given that at least three current PRÁM residents studied sculpture at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Uherské Hradiště – a program Tománek has led for many years and still teaches in – his selection is as intuitive as it is symbolic.

The range of formal and thematic approaches in Zdeněk’s work naturally reflects the scope of his artistic practice – something that could be glimpsed, for example, at the retrospective held in his honor last year by the Slovácké Museum in Uherské Hradiště. His body of work includes patinated reliefs that verge on informel, surreal miniature architectures, nature-inspired lyrical references, as well as exacting public space commissions. A number of his works — whether created decades ago or rooted in the aesthetics of the 1990s or earlier — may come as a surprise to the youngest generation of sculptors due to their striking contemporary relevance.

The exhibition Something focuses on subtle, almost linear sculptures in aluminum or bronze, created over the past decade. These pieces are characterized by both fragility and the persistence of their plant-like protoforms – long tendrils unfold, twine, and draw in the gallery space, while slender mushrooms grow through archetypal greenhouse structures. Within the exhibition, these space-dominating lines are paradoxically grounded by lotus leaves gliding along a sloped surface in one of the rooms.

This plant morphology, which occupies minimal space yet holds the potential to dominate it, also serves as a fragmentary message from a mysterious garden – a trailing tendril from Zdeněk’s personal environment, shared with mature trees, Japanese creeper, ivy, and a pond filled with water lilies and fish. In this setting, sculptures are omnipresent; the rural house blends seamlessly into the garden through a large window, the garden flows into a studio filled with shelves of sculptural archive, and in the corner behind a disused greenhouse, the casting and melting of metals appears almost unbelievably effortless.

Yet there is something in Zdeněk’s work that escapes the straightforward line between living space and the artworks that mirror or extend it. What we initially perceived as thorns, on closer inspection, turn out to be wings. Onto a structure that resembles a magnified dandelion caught in the wind holds a chameleon. Something does not hide in any one place; rather, it is the principle by which Zdeněk connects individual shapes, entities, and environments.

The project is implemented with financial support from City of Prague and State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic.