Kamencová-Skuhravá, Jitka

The name of glassmaker and designer Jitka Kamencová Skuhravá is synonymous with natural elegance, graceful shape and unpretentious but obvious luxury. This original artist, a pupil of the world-renowned Vladimír Kopecký, is experienced in both the traditional technology of medieval stained glass as well as in contemporary Scandinavian design. She started out painting flat glass and linear décor; based on a ‘graphic’ approach that can be traced through her work to this day. Her typical engraved décor is derived namely from observations of nature. She uses structures of bird’s nests, spider’s webs or clusters of sea-grass, grass-blades, stalks or straw drifting on water or wind.

The cycle of seasons has also become a source of inspiration for her, particularly for her most successful set of decorative glass vases called ‘Drops’. Their cultivated shapes are derived from the process of ice melting in spring, when hot sun rays naturally shape pieces of ice. Throughout the processes of slow snow melting, when water flows around and infiltrates into the mass of ice and there appear poetic, once-in-a-lifetime, yet masterly shapes. Jitka kamencová Skuhravá succeeded in imitating the inimitable through a very valuable spontaneous process. Like drops of water she let the fervent molten glass flow freely to form the shapes without the use of a mould.
‘Bubbles in Space’ also features the elegance of delicate self-motion, reminding of an open space full of levitating bubbles of champagne. Colours, exaltation and outstanding atmosphere are its intoxicating properties, and it casts a spell on those who see it.