Matěj Jindrák

After school leaving exams at Lepař Grammar School in Jičín in 2011, I enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture of Brno University of Technology, from where I graduated in 2019 with the work Milíčeves, Slatiny – A Residential Site within a Landscape under the supervision of Barbora Ponešová Krejčová. Afterwards I was accepted in the master’s degree study at the Faculty of Fine Arts in the Sculpture 2 Studio led by Professor Jan Ambrůz, where I also created my diploma work called Fragile World.

Workshops

  • 2016 Collaboration on project NAKI (DF13P01OVV019) 2013-2016 Identification and Interpretation of Origin, Form and Transformation of Czech Baroque Culture Landscape near South Moravian Borderline
  • 2016 Workshop Santini’s Language aiming at a reinterpretation of Santini’s masterpiece using computational techniques - Grasshopper
  • 2015 Workshop Beyond the Edge of Pharmacon aiming at discovering and interpretation of a western Bohemian post-mining landscape
  • 2015 Workshop Concept-Collage-Confrontation, Temporary Urban Intervention, Olomouc

Awards

  • 2017 1st prize - Revitalisation of public space in Umělecká Street, Ostrava, collaboration with Ondřej Belica and Jan Adamus
  • 2016 2nd prize - Best Urban Project Prize in 2016 - University Island Povegllia, Venice, Italy
  • 2016 2nd prize - Superstudio, Idea project of transformation of underused ski resorts into Bitcoin mining Farms, collaboration with Norbert Obršál and Tereza Kvapilová

Fragile World

medium: sculpture/installation/performance

sand relief: 12 squares, 60x60 cm, cast plaster of Paris with sand
sand relief: 12 squares, 60x60 cm, cast plaster of Paris with sand

My creation process starts by searching for correlations between what is natural, from nature, and what is artificial. I experimented with layering during pencil drawing with a single stroke and the changes caused by the posture of the body or position of the arm. I gradually abandoned drawing with pigment and using only a fine needle I recorded the imprint in an aluminium foil. They were minor works which were sketches by nature. They were significant for me in the shift towards the structure of a low relief. These drawings and reliefs invoked the form of annual rings and an overall impression of a cross-section of wood, a trunk. The level of imitation was so strong that I started to think about it as a theme.

Imitation as creating an illusion, as well as understanding certain principles. In this way I arrived at the ancient problem of Mimésis, which I take to be a creative means of knowledge. In this sense I try to work with the apparent unusability of a crack, which nevertheless remains a generic phenomenon. I started emulating the cracking of tree bark in a different material - in sand. The initially relatively smooth bark of young trees with the progress of time grows away from the trunk and as the trunk grows wider and at the same time taller, the older, outside layers are not able to keep together with the resulting formation of cracks and natural creation of a low relief. The crack formed in this way generates a paradoxical situation. It is essentially a fault – an error, but it directly gives rise to the new quality and variety of the surface, which becomes a liveable and interactive relief.

Although I did not attempt to stick to a single concept and the resulting work consists of multiple parts, I can name a crack, an illusion and an imitation as the subjects around which this work oscillates. I thought about a myth, but it seems impossible to work with it consciously, so I better push it aside and will try to see that it is at least felt in suggestions somewhere or practised though a ritual. Another essential factor during my work was the feeling of uncertainty which later became materialised during the performative installation of a glass vessel. The moment of collapse can happen anywhere and is completely irreversible - final. The cube as the materialisation of the rational space of Cartesian coordinates is exposed to a test. A stick will be submerged in the vessel and we can observe its refraction as it passes through the water surface. But is this phenomenon real, or does it only seem to be so? Every illusion is preceded by a precondition. Let us mention the well-known saying: “A stick submerged in water seems to be broken”. A vessel with water and a stick holds a mystery within.

aluminium relief: 7 pieces, 97x45 cm each, aluminium foil 99 microns thick
aluminium relief: 7 pieces, 97x45 cm each, aluminium foil 99 microns thick
vessel 60x60x60 cm, glass 6 mm thick, water, hazel stick
vessel 60x60x60 cm, glass 6 mm thick, water, hazel stick