What is your background?
I was born in Belgium, but my parents moved to Czechia when I was a kid. None of my family members was ever artistically directed, but I was always drawn to art. Ever since I could hold a brush, I knew painting was something I would study.
You finished at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in July 2022. What has happened since then?
After hard diploma work, I went for an art residency in New York with my fellow artist friends, and I had 3 amazing solo shows in New York (Shin House), Vienna (Suppan), and Belgium (Ballon Rouge). I started missing school, so I applied to Ruskin School of Art in the UK, which was my dream school, and, to my surprise, I was accepted. I will start in November 2024, and I could not be more excited about this.
I noticed one of your works at the SPARK Art Fair Vienna this year. Can you tell me more about the vases?
My obsession with vases started during my studies in Taiwan. I was painting about the issue of sex tourism in Southeast Asia, and the vase represented a woman’s body with its shape and also the material’s fragility. Firstly, I painted this subject of a vase, usually in traditional shapes of vases in Asia, but also in shapes of traditional porcelain from Belgium or Czechia. When I returned from Taiwan, I wanted to learn how to make a sculpture as well, and this is how my journey to 3m big concrete vases started.
What does the vase represent to you?
It’s a symbol of tradition and a woman’s body.
How do you begin a new piece, and what steps follow?
Usually with paintings, I stretch out a new, unprimed canvas and start my sketches directly onto the canvas without any thinking before. Some paintings turned out to be good, and some I destroyed. My style of painting does not allow me to repaint the canvas I only get one chance to make the painting before all my colors dry out. With sculptures, it is a more difficult process. I first draw a sketch on paper and then model the sculpture into clay, then make a mold, and finally cast it into concrete or other material.
How do you deal with uncertainties and doubts?
Mostly by working harder and more intensely. I think most artists are doubtful about their work. I certainly am, but painting more and more and talking about new works with other artists that I like helps a lot. Curator Judit Krijgh-Bozsan guided me deeply when I was most unsure about my work.
And how do these themes manifest in your art?
Everything that goes through my mind shows in my painting, usually by emotions shown in the figurative work or by symbols hidden in the composition. Every symbol that I paint has a story behind it. Like vases or snakes, which represent my worst fears. When I paint other people, I put some symbol that resets them. When I painted my friend talented artist Annemarie Vardanyan, I painted a little wooded Armenian cross next to her legs. Which was a gift from her that I got years ago when she visited her hometown.
What does the color red mean to you?
Cadmium red appeared in my works during my first residency in Miami. Until the residency, most of my works were monochromatic gray-colored, but in Miami, the light there was so bright that I wanted to somehow return color to my paintings, and cadmium red was the best option for recreating the intensity of the light. Also, it gave the illusion of a filter for my works that were a little bit hidden because of that and gave it a sort of safe shield from the viewers or the „world.“.
How do you spend your summers?
Mostly by working because it is finally warm in my studio, unlike the winter. Winter is when I try to travel. There is no heating in my studio, so in the summer I try to work as much as I can. But besides working in the summer, I also play a lot of tennis and fly with Cessna, which are my 2 favorite things to do.
Where can one currently view your works? What exhibitions do you have planned for the near future?
Right now I am finishing works for the Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen, where we go with Suppan, and a group show in Slovakia with DOT Gallery. Until November 2024, there is a group show in the National Gallery in Prague where one of my large paintings is shown.
Laura Limbourg – www.instagram.com/laura.limbourg/