Nik Timková: What is whispered on the wind? What is the kiss of fire? What is the secret of the serpent? What lies at the center of the labyrinth?

Nik Timková has studied at Kraków’s Academy of Fine Arts AVU, Prague’s Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, London’s Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, and Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Art. Besides her work in the fine arts, she is also a curator for Prague’s A.M. 180 Gallery. Founded near the turn of the millennium, it was among the first galleries to be run by artists based on the principles of DIY culture. Timková’s work is interwoven with elements of an aesthetic inspired by new technologies and anchored in her generation’s digital burden. She also nimbly utilises everyday materials, with an emphasis on textile design, which she studied abroad. These studies included a project that deconstructed clothing against the backdrop of a study of its formal, societal, and social structures. In her project for the Altán Klamovka (Klamovka Gazebo) gallery, she presents her work via an installation of carpets. The spark behind this was her idea to create a site-specific installation that, by tempting visitors to rest, would be in tune with the gallery’s park environment. Yet the installation itself centers around the drawings that are used as the carpets’ decoration. These are a collage of digital drawings. Their thick layering creates an impression of both chaos and order — just as in our everyday lives. Chaotic urban life and oases of calm can be perceived here with reference to with this gazebo situated in a park along a very busy street, Plzeňská. The layers, like the daily strata of chaos and order, ultimately create a visually harmonious whole with a storyteller inside. When observed long enough, this whole provides the viewer with situations where individual fragments come to life right before their eyes and spin an endless wheel of associations. The present exhibition is thus special in how it calms and quiets the viewer’s mind and submerges them into fantasy. Its main point is an intimate experience with a magical gesture of slowing down and giving presence to the present — the only time in which we will find true peace and order. Its name ties into a riddle for a springtime equinoctial ritual: What is whispered on the wind? What is the kiss of fire? What is the secret of the serpent? What lies at the center of the labyrinth? And this exhibition will indeed open shortly after the equinox, so come and try to answer these questions linked to the four elements — air, fire, earth, and water.