Lava Glass Vase Red
by Anna Jožová · Prague, Czech Republic

Anna Jožová (*1996) is a Czech artist and designer who works with glass on the border between free art and design. In 2023 she graduated from the Master's programme at the Glass Studio under the supervision of Professor Rony Plesl at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague. Between 2016 and 2017, she studied in the Ceramic Design Studio under Antonín Tomášek at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem. Anna has been studying ceramics and porcelain since her studies at the Václav Hollar Secondary School of Art. Since 2018, she has presented her work in many collective exhibitions, fairs and art projects, e.g. at London Design Week, Venice Design Biennial, Czech Grand Design, Glassfest Karlovy Vary, etc., as well as in a solo show at the Kvalitář gallery in Prague. Apart from his own work, he also collaborates with designer Vlastimil Šenkýř, with whom he forms an artistic duo under the name Kombo. He has been consistently working on his own glass creation and design, combining different, at first sight disparate materials and classical glass techniques to create new unique objects.To understand Anna Jožová's work, it is essential that she does not work only formally and is not only focused on the visual effect of the work. On the contrary, she always carefully considers and chooses the form based on a given concept based on her natural interest in the surrounding world. This is also linked to a desire to explore and push the boundaries of glass as a creative material and to push its technical possibilities. Experimentation is therefore one of the most important approaches in Anna Jožová's work, thanks to which she finds new ways of working with glass. Combined with the conceptual background of most of her projects, this results in works that are design objects, but the way the artist creates and reflects on them moves them into the realm of free art.Since 2018, Anna Jožová has been creating a series of original vases, always responding to a currently explored theme. Some of these series are therefore partly related to each other, thus shifting the artistic and technological approach to new positions. Her most important creative theme so far is a reflection on the impact of human intervention on the environment, which she addresses, for example, in the Gaia, Keto and Nava series. At the same time, Anna Jožová's work is able to look back with a certain amount of humour at some moments of our everyday life (the Coquettes series, the Lisa vase, Hangover) and in some cases her work is almost a philosophical meditation on the existence of man and his connection to a certain time and place (the Kairo series, Chrono)