Off the Beaten Track
28. 1. 2026 - 1. 3. 2026
Through exclusive collections by František Jungvirt and Tomáš Žemla, the exhibition leads to places that require a certain courage to reach, even though they are part of the surrounding domestic landscape and accessible to everyone. The challenge lies precisely in their ordinariness—rural biotopes along transport corridors. Visiting them requires a somewhat unnatural willingness to step out of firmly established routes and marked paths into the background scenery. Yet this emptiness offers small groves reminiscent of primeval forests, blooming and buzzing meadows, and fields with textures varying according to crops and seasons. These are places that give the Czech landscape its specific face, its sound, scent, rhythm—its life.
František Jungvirt and Tomáš Žemla regularly set out into these regions. The local environment has accompanied them since the beginnings of their work, and the often uneasy dialogue between the man-made and the natural has become the core of their creative inspiration. The theme of the cultural landscape is for them as intense, complex, and timeless as interpersonal relationships are for a playwright. Through motifs familiar to everyone, it also leads to an intensification of emotion, the development of craftsmanship, the capture of the spirit of the times, and the updating of the viewer’s attitudes toward their surroundings.
Through his relationship with plants, insects, and fragments of the countryside, František Jungvirt redefines the notion of the vase—his key object. He lends it a role far more dignified than that of a mere, albeit precisely executed, design for flowers. His vases can be perceived as sculptures or large pieces of jewelry that enter into an equal dialogue—and sometimes even a narrative—with details of nature. Tomáš Žemla, in turn, conveys from landscape scenes senses that transcend order and a vitality one would expect from a visit to a sacred temple rather than from oil and canvas. This is reflected in his meditative painting technique of layered strokes, demanding both imagination and time, which fully respects the geometry of fields as well as the overgrowth of small wooded areas.
The collaboration between the two artists was born three years ago. They intersected not only in their respect for nature but also for folk traditions. Both also share a long-standing inclination toward minimalism and abstract thinking. They emphasize process, detail, and above all a high level of craftsmanship in their work. Three years ago, both were also striving to secure their place on the art scene. Since then, František Jungvirt has become one of the most sought-after contemporary glass artists, who alongside standard projects can devote himself to exceptional artistic collections such as these, and two years ago he published an extensive monograph. Over the past three years, Tomáš Žemla has held numerous exhibitions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, leading to strong interest in most of his bodies of work, culminating in a recently concluded major solo exhibition at the Alš South Bohemian Gallery. He published his monograph just a few weeks ago.
What began as a small, until-now unexhibited collaboration—when František Jungvirt responded to Tomáš Žemla’s fields with a few vases, and Žemla in turn created several still lifes inspired by the shadows of his colleague’s glass objects—has evolved into a larger exhibition. It presents both the aforementioned works and the current production of this rapidly rising duo. Paradoxically, behind it all stand fragments of ordinary landscape, which testifies to one thing alone: that in the speed of today’s progress, alongside innovation, an equally intense source of originality and social significance lies in the ability to stop, to quiet down, and to perceive one’s surroundings in finer nuances. To step aside and reveal things that are too ordinary, and yet so profoundly defining.
text for the exhibition: Jan Čejka