TEREZIE TOMKOVÁ

Atlas of Small Joys

Painting Studio 3

In Atlas of Small Joys, you build a monument to small, seemingly unnecessary objects that may, however, have immeasurable personal value for their owner. What drove you to make ceramic copies of them?
Ceramic versions of small things allow us to return to the moment of their discovery. I enjoy how ordinary and almost invisible things begin transforming into small stories and memories, and rouse the imagination.

I can’t help but ask; I have drawers and boxes full of these things at home and sometimes I wish I was more decisive and just threw away the junk. How about you? Do you just uncritically love your little trinkets?
I would like to have fewer things around me, but that’s difficult as an artist and a teacher. Furthermore, I have in recent months started considering my room more as a studio, so found objects, materials, and work materials have slowly been settling there.

How important is the question of spirituality to you? Do you attach any magical meaning to these little things? Are they talismans?
Sensitivity to ordinary moments and subtle things were very important to me in this work. I consider these small objects as vessels of time that retain traces of a situation, mood or brief moment that would otherwise disappear. For me, the work also had a therapeutic aspect.

photo: Polina Davydenko