Collection

Like most of Czech’s paintings, Rose's Desire was created in one session. For her, painting is the practice of working through difficult personal experiences, a form of emotional cleansing. The titular rose—a symbol of romantic love—is a typical symbolic self-portrait for the artist. Many hands open like flower petals, fingers and bones as leaves and thorns. The hand outstretched in a gesture of welcome could signal openness to another person, the beginning of a new relationship. However Czech paints the hand as withering. Wilting flowers are a classic motif in the history of painting: vanitas. The dark, corpse-like colors of Rose's Desire bring to mind 17th century still lifes of rotting organic matter, meant as a reminder that happiness is temporary, and life is fleeting.

The dark side of romantic love is—to continue with the plant metaphor—withering from longing, with obsessive thoughts that buzz like flies, and memories that twist around in the mind. Rose's Desire speaks of our helplessness in the face of extreme emotions, strung out between love and hate. Opening oneself to emotions means risking hurt—there is no rose without its thorns.

Painter. Graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Krakow and workshop of Prof. Andrzej Tobis. In her expressionist painting she deals with toxic relations between people as well as violence against animals. Her work often draws on her own personal experiences. She depicts them in a blunt, often even brutal manner—formally as well as thematically. Her work is strongly driven by extreme emotions—love, hate, nostalgia, regret, and suffering. She was the 2015 winner of the 42nd Painting Biennale of Bielska Jesień. She lives and works in Katowice.