DESIGN >
Association of hens
Written by: Štěpánka Strouhalová
Photo by: Věroslav Sixt

The Hens' Program, a collection of witty glass items by Ivana Šrámková and Michal Machat, acted as an optimistic apparition among the mainly melancholy, oppressive works displayed at the recent Art Prague trade fair.

RECENTLY these former classmates under Professor Libenský at the College of Applied Arts got together to work on an original project that was unusual for both of them. "We wanted to again draw attention to pot-metal blown glass technology, which has been nearly forgotten by today's glass sculpters," Šrámková says. So they spontaneously began thinking up - at first various animals with their typical characters, and finally playful hen figurines. "It's an ordinary but rather symbolic animal that can have many human characteristics. In fact I really like hens, and I don't see them as symbols of stupidity - at least not all of them," she adds.
It's hard to say which artist played the greatest role in creating these picturesque figurines. They say it was an equal relationship, a total artistic consonance, resulting in a collection of over 70 works. "There are leading personalities as well as ordinary hens scratching around in courtyards," says Šrámková. "Completely nonsensical; simply as colorful and varied a society as that of us humans." The artists made their creations in the Beránek glassworks in Škrdlovice. "Neither of us can do the blowing, that's mainly the work of a pot-metal master whom the artists direct according to their ideas and sketches. So the sculptures carry the hallmarks of the glassworks," they explain. First the melted glass is blown into one of the basic forms of the animal's body, and then various details are melted on, creating the figure's final form.
Hen Program, which the duo will also exhibit in the Stöllting gallery in Hamburg this summer, is a completed project, and the artists aren't planning to continue it. Šrámková is already preparing another exhibition of figures made of cast glass, this time of pink nudes, which she'll show in New York in the fall. Machat, who is more attracted to painting and drawing, is continuing his work on glass objects painted with glass enamel.

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