Hojaková is able to visually capture both fleeting ideas and well thought-out themes. We don’t detect any intellectual tension or attempt at elaborate expression. This is sincere, playful art with no cultural overtones, reflecting Hojaková’s affinity for nature and hiking, her acquired experience and collected memories. She paints parts of the city that are shaped by their architecture (Hradčany, houses in Letná, Český Krumlov), or natural motifs focused either on detail (flowers) or, again, on a chosen part of the greater whole.  She also explores the limits of still life. Portraits and figural motifs, however, have completely disappeared from her recent work.

She most appreciates paintings which emerge somehow inadvertently, unwittingly. When painting or drawing, she is guided by her momentary mood and immediate inspiration. She then leaves the development of her vision up to serendipity and spontaneously relishes the creative process itself. These works can be compared to the Surrealists’ psychic automatism.

One of the most interesting features in Hojaková’s work is the interconnection of two completely dissimilar artistic media – ceramics and painting.  Šárka Hojaková manages to make this link surprisingly uncomplicated. The spatial organization, consideration of color, and the creative process intrinsic to both media organically merge into a unified whole in Hojaková’s work.

The paintings’ vivid palette is an unsettling element that makes us reflect and look for further associations. Initially, one sees peculiar tones of muted reds, deep blues, greens, browns and yellows augmented by white, which can create an almost unpleasant impression. When one looks twice, they fit right in with Hojaková’s work. She uses them in almost all of her works, whether documenting urban architecture or a natural motif.  It is her hallmark. The groundedness and simultaneous wildness and unfetteredness evoke the atmosphere of a tropical forest, African art or the shades of the final glazes used on ceramic pieces.

Šárka Hojaková currently works mainly at Studio Barvolam. She has been a member of several associations, including Duha, Inventura, Art Centrum Letná and the Studio of Joyful Art.  She was also a radio workshop presenter with the Inventura association, co-creating the program Rentgen Inventury / X-ray Inventory for Radio Wave.

Edita Mikoláškova, 2021