Háša Matouš

Matouš Háša was born in 1992. He is a graduate of Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and has also attended schools in Florence (Libera Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze) and London (Middlesex University London). In response to current cultural and social events, he uses the media of figurative sculptures, which he places in iconographic contexts reminiscent of symbolic or archetypal depictions. His work, stripped of context and interpretation, is a formal continuation of the tradition of Western sculpture inspired by a combination of classical sculpture and contemporary figurative artists. In his work, he consciously draws on the "roots" of Western culture, which he transfers into the form of a psychoanalytic portrait of a postmodern man. It deals with the question of identity, which the present has deprived of secrecy and privacy. This young sculptor bases his expression on the contrast between the traditional and the contemporary. He observes a certain dualism caused by his instinctive inclination towards the classical form, in which his preference towards realism contrasts against a rational need to express himself consciously. He works according to the classical tradition. His themes, with which he usually reacts to local and global social and political phenomena, are based on the "changed behavior" of old, well-known and proven figures of the antique, renaissance, mannerist traditions. He grants them new gestures and puts new attributes in their hands. This decontextualization is behind the convincing contradiction with which he grasps the unclear present in its experiential and media movement.