Paulina Skavova

Her animal figures are not mere copies of living models. Deer (2016) has the grandeur and power of a symbol dedicated to Artemis, the goddess of the hunt; it is a personification of the sun and an apparition of St. Hubert and St. Eustace. The statue of the dog Tyson (2007) expresses the dogged nature of the fighting breed, the Bavarian Mountain Hound (2011) the astuteness and intelligence of the hunting dog. Skavova is the author of the monument to the legendary hardy thoroughbred horse breed Akhal Teke for Moscow as well as the statue of the mare Farba (2014). A light-hearted reference to Greek mythology is her female paraphrase of the mythical animal (Female Centaur, 2014).

Skavová's portrait work includes commemorative plaques (Radovan Lukavský, 2013, General Josef Mašín, 2016, Bishop Stanislav Krátký, 2016) and free-standing sculptures (Antonín Rückl, 2010, bust of Dr. Štastný, 2011, statue of Frank Sidebottom, 2013). She conceived the bust of boxer Mike Tyson (2012) as a personality with sparkle and detachment, sure of his superiority, a bit like the genie from Aladdin's lamp. Figures created as commissions for private collectors include portraits (Offenburg, 2004, Porcelain Portraits of Children, De Louwerte Family, Portraits of Children, Madelaine and Gian Elia, Rohner-Erni Family Winery, Switzerland, 2005), classical female nudes (Bathroom, 2013, Seated, 2014) and stylized sculptures intended for the outdoors (Melancholia, 2013).

Often her subjects are gendered and defiantly eroticized - for example, a series of half-figures of women adorned with antelope horns and arranged as trophies (Goat Woman, 2012, Goat Woman, 2013, Oryx Antelope, 2013, Hartebeest Antelope, 2013, Mouflon Woman, 2013), or a group of kneeling Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2012). The model of the dwarf and also of Vilímek Ostrovský is a particular boy from Kladno. Snow White, conceived as a rocking horse, is an erotically-themed object, but also a reaction to the gender-nonconforming work of British pop-artist Allen Jones, who made various kinds of utilitarian furniture, a table, a chair or a wardrobe, out of a female object.

Skavová's works are visually strong, emotionally charged, often provocative, ironically coloured, imbued with contrasting and ambiguous contents. Highlighted feminine beauty and sex appeal combined with power and brutality mixes a strange cocktail that tastes at once beautiful and monstrous. She is able to create ironic self-stylization (Paulina and Tyson, 2011), referring to emancipated female film heroines (Pistol Girl, 2008), repulsive female types (Fatty, 2011) and classic sculptural works (Diana, 2010, Venus, 2011).

From 2010 to 2020, she curated exhibitions at the UFFO Social Centre in Trutnov. From 2020, she works for the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery as head of the marketing and production department and public relations. She lives and works in Novosedly and since 1998 has been working on casting sculptures in bronze with the art foundry in Horní Kalná. In cooperation with Petr Seifert and the company G1 Glass Art Studio she began to create large-scale relief portraits in fused glass, for example of Miloš Havel for Barrandov Studios or Ignaz Ginzkey for Vratislavice. Since 2009, she has collaborated with film architect Ondřej Nekvasil and has already created around 20 projects for film.

In 2003, she received a Swiss state scholarship and completed postgraduate studies at the Lucerne School of Art and Design (2003-2004). In 2004-2005, she was an assistant at the graphic design school of Prof. Vladimír Kokola at the Academy of Fine Arts. She spent three months on a study stay in Acapulco in 2008.

Her realizations of sculptures in public space are also unorthodox and innovative. The statue of the Dragon (2003), which is a symbol of the town of Trutnov and has its own place of remembrance, is based on a folk tale and depicts a creature lying on its back, already killed. For the Trutnov festivities, the sculptor designed the Dragon Gate (2009) with a large-scale statue of a dragon carved from a polystyrene block, patinated as bronze. For the Autostyl company in Trutnov, she created three geometrically stylized dragon sculptures, bearing on their bodies a relief of assembly keys as a symbol of the car service. The statue of Rübezahl (Rýbrcoul) on the Trutnov roundabout refers to the first depiction of the pagan mountain god on Helwig's map of Silesia from 1561, and has nothing to do with Rübezahl from modern children's fairy tales.

Skavová has always been close to performance art, dance theatre and film. Already at the Academy, she organized performances of AVUbelles, majorettes, and Nepraš's plymate calendar (graduation exhibition Lesbian School of Karel Nepraš, 2002). Since 2005, she has been an important actor in the performance group Kolouchův sen (Fawn´s Dream) (Michaela Huffstetter, Hana Poislová, and a hobbyist group of models), and has also created masks and costumes for events and performances. Fawn´s Dream has been performed by Women's Weapons group at the Alfred ve dvoře Theatre (2007, 2009), and The Little Sea Wolf on the Forman Brothers' Ship (2010). She began working with film in 2005 and has created a number of sculptures for it, applying her rich imagination. One such sculpture is Griffin (2014), a mythical animal creature with the body, tail and hind legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle.

Some of her early works, created during her studies at the Academy, had a strong existential subtext (Birds, 1998, Eye, 1999, Ark of the Covenant, 2000, Lamp, 2002), but Paulina Skavová also adopted her professor's distinctive ironic detachment and unkind humour, creating the installation Monument on Mount Blaník (2002), conceived as a persiflage of national myth, and the installation Bank Robbery (2002), as a training ground for bank robbers. After graduating, she developed the tradition of figurative sculpture in her own way. Thanks to the free atmosphere in Karel Nepraš's studio, her works straddle the line between sculpture and concept and are characterized by both playfulness and consistency. She does not accept a narrow definition of sculpture, object and installation and enlivens the serious modelling in her free work with wit and exaggeration. Some of her favourite sculptors include Alina Szapocznikow, Méret Oppenheim and Sarah Lucas. She has collaborated on sculptures by other sculptors (The Fighter, Jiří Sozanský, 2008, Equestrian statue of T.G. Masaryk, Petr Novák, 2009).

Paulina Skavova was born in Trutnov. She graduated from the Trutnov High school (1991–1995) and spent two years at the Secondary School of Stonemasonery and Sculpture in Hořice (1995–1997). During the entrance exams to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, she was chosen by Professor Karel Nepraš for his studio, with whom she studied until his death (2002). In 2001 she received the studio prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and in 2002 the Jana Rybářová Prize, Fondazione Europea Margherita, Italy. In 1999 she completed an Erasmus study stay in Helsinki, in 2002 a scholarship at the Egon Schiele Art Centrum in Český Krumlov. She completed her studies at the Milan Knížák Studio of Intermedia in 2003.

Paulina Skavova or Paulina Skavová (born 8 November 1976) is a Czech sculptor, scenographer and conceptual artist.

In the restoration of some monuments she has demonstrated her sculptural sensitivity to classical works. According to surviving documentation, she recreated a sculpture of an eagle stolen from the monument to the 6th Battalion of Field hunters, who died in the Battle of Náchod in 1866, in Václavice (2016), sculptures of permoniks (a demon inhabiting and guarding mines in Czech and Slovak folklore) for a fountain in Trutnov (2015) or Emil Schwantner's sculptural Dance of Death (2017) for the World War I memorial in Trutnov Park, which was destroyed during the Nazi occupation. In 2018, Paulina Skavová created a new statue of the legionnaire Jan Gayer for the restoration of the monument to the fallen legionnaries of the 4th Rifle Regiment of Prokop the Great in Hradec Králové. The memorial won the Annual Award of the City of Hradec Králové as the Event of the Year 2018. She proved her originality and seriousness in the treatment of the sacral theme when she won the commission for the statue of the Crucified Christ, which she worked on for three years. The bronze statue of Christ replaced the original old cross in the neighbourhood of the church in Bohdaneč.