Exhibition: Ema Chorá & Lukáš Kováčik
Curators:
Magdalena TurzováThe Latin title Hortus saxorum – a garden of stones – refers to the garden as a place of cultivation, care, and transformation. In the context of this year’s festival theme, “From Workshops and Gardens,” both the garden and the workshop are spaces where natural processes intertwine with human intervention. Stone, a natural part of gardens and landscapes alike, is the shared starting point for the work of Ema Chorá and Lukáš Kováčik.
Ema Chorá works primarily with natural materials (stone, wood, brick, and mother-of-pearl), whose inherent properties become an integral part of a work’s meaning. Her objects draw on symbols inspired by sacred art, shifting their meaning from a religious context to the broader level of humanity’s relationship to nature, work, and care. For her, the symbol cannot be separated from the material – stone, wood, or brick are not mere carriers of meaning but actively take part in shaping it. Archetypal motifs of the hand and the pomegranate, or the figure of St. Joseph with a lily, thus open up space for a contemporary interpretation of traditional symbols.
Lukáš Kováčik works with collage, using shifts in scale to connect geological structures with landscape, architecture, and the cosmos. He uses macro photographs of minerals, satellite images, and other visual records of natural phenomena, layering them into images that move between geology, landscape, and outer space. In a spatial collage installed in the chapel, an image of the cosmic background radiation turns into a planet carrying a roof structure – a motif of home and safety – surrounded by macro photographs of chalcedony that resemble clouds. An object placed in a cell combines a photograph of poisonous monkshood with a shape inspired by the Japanese kimono – a symbol of protection, harmony, and identity.
Hortus saxorum presents a garden that grows not from vegetation but from stone. In the works of both artists, natural processes merge with human imagination, and stone becomes not only a physical material but also a carrier of images, symbols, and meanings.
Curated by Magdalena Turzová
About the authors
Ema Chorá (b. 1994, Olomouc) studied glass design at the Secondary School of Applied Arts for Glassmaking in Valašské Meziříčí and painting under František Kowolowski at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Ostrava. In recent years, alongside painting, she has also been working with objects, primarily using natural materials such as stone and wood.
Her work draws on symbols inspired by sacred art, stripping their meaning of traditional religious interpretation and relating it to nature, material, and archetypal experience. She finds inspiration on her travels, bringing back symbols and materials that become part of her objects. When working with stone and wood, she uses traditional sculptural techniques, combining them with a contemporary visual language.
Lukáš Kováčik (b. 1988, Nitra) is a Slovak painter living and working in Olomouc. He studied painting in Painting Studio 2 under František Kowolowski at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Ostrava. His work focuses primarily on painting and collage.
In his collages he creates imaginary worlds, architectural structures, and geological formations by layering photographs of rocks, minerals, satellite views, and other visual records of natural processes. By shifting scale, he connects the microworld of stone structures with landscape and architecture, revealing links between nature, humankind, and the geological memory of the Earth.