Veronika Drahotová

Who is Veronika Drahotová?

Veronika Drahotová is a Czech artist and curator known for mixed-media work incorporating painting, photography, installation, lighting and film.

Drahotová was born and raised in Prague, Czech Republic. In 1992 she became one of the youngest students ever to matriculate at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, studying under Jiří David and Jiří Sopko, receiving a one-year scholarship at the San Francisco Art Institute, and a Masters of Art degree in 2000.

She first drew attention to herself in 1998 with Castle in the Sky, a large-scale lighting installation funded by the Soros Foundation, in which the famous Prague Castle was completely illuminated in a rainbow glow for several nights. She has since had more than 10 solo shows in the U.S. and across Europe, including the recent painting series They Don't Know It, But They Are Doing It at Trafacka Gallery, and has participated in dozens of group shows. "Drahotová's images offer fantasy, but only in addition to a dose of reality along with it. There is frustration, pleasure, disappointment, and recurrence found all at once in this detached nomadic non-narrative." The Prague Post referred to her work in ALI-EN-ACE as focusing "on a dramatically projected notion of the self as a kind of retreat."