Hana Connor | Bára Prášilová | Dagmar Vyhnálková

School of Opava

17.09. – 15.10.2016

The Opava University's Institute of Creative Photography was founded in 1990 and is located near the Polish border and far from the city of Prague. Nevertheless, in the last 25 years it has developed into one of the most renowned Czech schools of photography and artistic photography and is attended by many foreign students. Famous photographers such as Dita Pepe or Rafal Milach studied there and now teach at this institute. Students are not – as is the accepted practice in academic art education – assigned one teacher, but are supported by various internal and external teachers and encouraged to develop their own individual visual language. The Soiz gallery is exhibiting works by three exponents of young Czech artistic photography: Hana Connor, Bara Prasilova and Dagmar Vyhnalkova who have their roots in the Institute of Creative Photography.

'I get to know a place when I perceive its people,' says Hana Connor (born 1980). She was repeatedly drawn to Wall Street, the essence of New York and indeed every other modern multicultural city. This resulted in her most intensive series to date. The black and white snapshots show constant movement and leave wide scope for interpretation, such as where a woman runs screaming along the street. These pictures are raw, often out of focus, irritate with reflected images. The viewer is pulled nevertheless into the tide of events.

The colourful works of Bara Prasilova (born 1979) seem to have originated in the stylized world of fashion. However, the artist uses fashion photography to explore the world. Her perfectly staged protagonists relate the loneliness and fragility of human existence. 'I try to understand human relationships through my photography,' says Prasilova. In her 'Evolve' series people are inseparably joined by pleats of hair or are ensnared in their loneliness. Pleated hair is a symbol of captivity to Prasilova: 'We don't let it flow freely because we are held back by our fears.'

The colour photographs by Dagmar Vyhnalkova (born 1985) appear, on first impressions, to come from another world – however, they want to guide us into our innermost core. Seemingly produced in the night or dusk, these spiritual works show varied subjects – people, countryside, animals or houses – all caught in a special fleeting moment that shows their part in the great totality. 'Ephemeral Moments of Beauty is a very personal series and represents important phases of my life discovered during my self-analysis,' says Vyhnalkova.