Big Prague Vase

DOMINIKA PETRTÝLOVÁ

is a glass artist based in Prague. She studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, in the Glass Studio led by Rony Plesl.

WHY A GLASS VASE?

In her work, she has been focusing on the vase and exploring the different meanings it can have across cultures. She sees it not only as a vessel, decorative object or sculpture, but also as a reflection of the society and time in which it was created.

For her, the vase is also a kind of three dimensional canvas. She can express herself not only through colour, but also through shape and scale. Glass as a material also offers endless possibilities for experimentation.

BIG PRAGUE VASE

The monumental glass vase builds on the tradition of representative exhibition vases presented at World Exhibitions and Jubilee Exhibitions in the nineteenth century. These objects were not merely decorative. They were a way for individual glassworks to demonstrate their craftsmanship, artistic skills and technological abilities. With this work, she responds to this tradition through her own contemporary interpretation. Just as exhibition vases of that time demonstrated what a glassworks was capable of, this vase demonstrates what she is capable of as a glass artist, painter and author.

She combines the historical form with contemporary Prague. She brings together expensive and inexpensive materials, old and new techniques. The hand painting is based on her personal visual archive of Prague, drawing from architecture, graffiti, Prague legends, nature and everyday situations, as well as from the mysterious, nocturnal and decadent side of the city. Together, these fragments create her personal mythology of Prague. Her parallel world.

TECHNOLOGY

The vase is hand blown into a wooden mould and entirely hand painted. The object also includes a 3D printed manhole cover from Prague, which she used as part of the base, and a 3D printed flame inspired by an oil stain she saw on a pavement.

SUBJECT OF THE PAINTING

She is interested in local legends and stories, people, nightlife, culture, the underworld of the city, but also in completely ordinary things she notices in her everyday life. Prague is also the place where she has built her family. She met her husband in Prague and they live here. She has tried to imprint all these layers of her life into the vase in some way. Every motif on the vase has its own story.

The central subject is herself as a nymph discovering other worlds. A nymph trying to escape from a framed world where she already knows every inch. She takes a risk and enters the unknown, where she may lose her way, discover a treasure, gain fame or find the love of her life.

There is also a headless rider, her own modern urban legend about a headless man who rides Prague's night trams after midnight until someone sets him free. The handles of the vase are not traditional handles. They are a fragment of a tag she saw on a rubbish bin. The result is a collage of her memories, ideas, fantasies and real life. From these fragments, she creates a kind of parallel universe, her own Prague, which she can return to in her thoughts and imagination.

Are you interested in a particular detail in the painting? Ask her.