Veronika Kudláčková Psotková (born 17 October 1981) is Czech sculptor and creator of monumental spatial installations.
Life Veronika Psotková was born on 17 October 1981 in Opava. She graduated from Mendel High School in Opava in 2001 and attended a public art school. From 2001 to 2006, she studied art teaching and mathematics for secondary education at the Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc. During her final year, she also studied sculpture at Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology in the sculpture studio of Michal Gabriel. While still a student, she held her first solo exhibition in 2006 and also participated in group exhibitions. Her 2009 thesis project, Grandfather's Garden — a series of 28 figures, won the Dean's Award and was exhibited at the DOX Gallery in Prague.>výstava sochařky Veroniky Psotkové s názvem Spolu / an exhibition by sculptor Veronika Psotková titled “Together”, DOX Prague, 2019
She has been actively practicing sports since her youth, focusing on swimming and playing basketball, volleyball, and beach volleyball, and this experience has also influenced the themes of her sculptures.Fascinuje mě elegance pohybu, říká Veronika Psotková / “I am fascinated by the elegance of movement,” says Veronika Psotková, Sport in Art, 26.07.2022 Since completing her college studies, she has been a free-lance sculptor.
In 2021, the renovation of St. Joseph's Chapel in Slavětín, designed by the Tsunami architectural studioKaple sv. Josefa, Slavětín / St. Joseph's Chapel in Slavětín, Tsunami and featuring an altar designed by Psotková, received an honorable mention in the “2021 Building of the Year in the Hradec Králové Region” competition. In 2024, her design for the Slavětín church won the category for public, cultural, and infrastructure buildings and received the BIG SEE Architecture Award in SloveniaBIG SEE Architecture Award 2024 Winner. In 2021, she also received the Public Choice Award at the Nord Art International exhibition in Büdelsdorf (Schleswig-Holstein).Veronika Psotková – Publikumspreis 2021 • Public Choice Award 2021 In 2025 she prepared multifigured composition for the Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione in Venice.
Since 2010, she has lived with her husband and two daughters in Obora near Louny, where she has a studio.
Awards 2009 Dean's Award for Thesis, Faculty of Architecture and Design, Brno University of Technology 2021 Building of the Year 2021, Hradec Králové Region, “Honorable Mention” 2021 Publikumspreis 2021, Nordart 2021, Büdelsdorf, Germany 2024 BIG SEE Architecture Award 2024. Winner in the category of public, cultural, and infrastructure buildings, Slovenia – for the conversion of St. Joseph's Chapel in Slavětín
Work Since the beginning of her career, Psotková has focused primarily on figurative art and themes such as the aesthetics of the body and the boundaries of intimacy (Time I and II, 2021). Her work draws on classical sculpture influenced by contemporary pop culture.Festival Světel Valašsko: Veronika Psotková, Dostatečný nadhled / Wallachia Festival of Lights: Veronika Psotková, “A Sufficient Perspective”, 2022 In her interpretation, so-called gender themes take on a playful or exaggerated quality and are characterized by a light touch of irony.Krajčíková A, 2024, p. 4 An important theme for her is sports and free movement liberated from gravity, as seen in her "flying dreams". She reflects on situations she experiences, and as a young mother, she also explores the themes of motherhoodNatálie Fosterová, Dox představuje sochy Veroniky Psotkové, Praha TV, 2019, closeness to children, and creating a sense of security.Natálie Fosterová, Dox představuje sochy Veroniky Psotkové / Dox Presents Sculptures by Veronika Psotková, Praha TV, 2019 Separately, she also exhibits sketches and digital graphics, which serve as visualizations of her sculptural installations. The works from 2016–2019 consist primarily of reflections on the life of a woman and mother, which served as the basis for her later sculptural installations Euphoria, Connection, In Space, and Mom's Coffee.Veronika Psotková, autorské grafiky a objekty / original prints, and objects, Dvoreček Gallery, Dýšina, 2021
Her realistic sculptural work in plaster, artificial stone made of Roman cement, acrylic, and bronze, she devoted herself to mainly during her studies, is very time-consuming. In an effort to lighten the form and speed up the process, she chose wire mesh on a wire frame as her material in 2007. She later discovered that it is possible to shape sculptures from wire mesh without a supporting structure onto which to mold the sculpture; instead, she cuts, shapes, and sews the wire mesh directly into "shells" — three-dimensional "drawings". The framework, which she later removes, is needed only for larger objects.Spojenci Veroniky Psotkové, Tišnovské noviny, 2020
She allows her sculptures made of wire mesh to develop a natural rust patina, or she repaints them and seals the finish with varnish. For outdoor sculptures, she also uses hot-dip galvanized wire mesh (Latte and Cheesecake, Kampa, Prague, 2023). While the final appearance of the outdoor sculptures is shaped by the weather and the gradual rusting of the material (Bikini Club, DOX, 2012), indoor installations offer the opportunity to work with the specific architecture of the space, to experiment, and to make creative use of colored lighting,Veronika Psotková, Artikl 7, 2023 which sometimes emphasizes the sculpture's volume or reveals it as a spatial drawing when viewed through. The lightness of the material allows her to create generously shaped, often larger-than-life figures that hang freely in space (17 figures of Aquabelles for the Forum Shopping Center in Liberec, 2016).Akvabely, OC Forum v Liberci, 2016
Psotková's sculptures are often created as site-specific to fit a specific location and frequently respond to existing architecture or the genius loci. At the same time, they reflect personal emotions and events, which she gives tangible form through her sculptures. As she comments: Through the gradual blending of themes and visual ideas and their refinement, I have created for myself a simple personal glossary, a concise guide for everyday life, for a complex world in which routine certainties have turned into shifting ground beneath my feet. For me, the sculptures become illustrations of this guide.Veronika Psotková — Grácie / Graces, MGC Valašské Meziříčí
The Dive-in sculpture group was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, with figures floating in the space of a vault on the Prague waterfront, separated from passersby by glass.Živá výstava během lockdownu: Jedna kobka na pražské Náplavce plave / A Live Exhibition During Lockdown: A Single Cell on Prague's Waterfront Is Floating, Nová Večerní Praha, 2021 She was deeply affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and working on the sculpture — her first politically engaged piece — helped her overcome her initial feelings of paralysis and helplessness.Jana Pšeničková, Sochařka spletla dívku z drátů, která oslavuje Ukrajinu / A sculptor created a wire sculpture of a girl celebrating Ukraine, Forbes 2022 In 2022, she created a sculpture titled Vinok, which hangs above Dlouhá Street near the NoD Gallery in Prague. It depicts a young woman wearing a wreath (vinok) shaped like the rising sun. Vinok is a Ukrainian symbol of the worship of Mother Earth and has also come to represent glory, victory, happiness, success, peace, chastity, youth, and femininity.Veronika Psotková: Vinok, NoD, Praha 2022/2023 The author symbolically dedicated it to all mothers in the war in Ukraine.
Another work with a socially critical message is Pillar of Society (2024), a site-specific installation that calls for a sense of community in the face of individualism, loneliness, and indifference. It is accompanied by the sculptures Lazy Skin, which reflect a feeling of emptiness and merging with the surface, the inability to get up, burnout, and acceptance of one's own condition. Her other work - A Better Perspective, explores the search for perspective and outlook in a confusing space and context.Krajčíková A, Beze strachu / No Fear (Veronika Psotková), 2024
In 2025, she installed the monumental sculpture group Perpetuo in the Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione in Venice. The sculpture, consisting of thirty larger-than-life figures and torsos standing 6 meters tall, created from 1.5 km of wire mesh, weighs 4.5 metric tons including its supporting structure.Viktorie Melicharová, České umění v srdci Benátek: když se kostel promění v galerii i koncertní síň / Czech Art in the Heart of Venice: When a Church Becomes Both a Gallery and a Concert Hall, Forbes, 19.9.2025 It is her most extensive exhibition abroad to date.Linda K. Sedláková, in: Marie Bordier, Průsvitné, přitom monumentální. Sochařka Psotková vystavuje v Benátkách drátěné figury / Translucent, yet monumental. Sculptor Psotková is exhibiting wire figures in Venice, Publico, 13.5.2025 Psotková conceived it as a symbolic loop of scenes from social media (scrolling)Kateřina Kadlecová, "Co to tady visí za železo?" Sochařka Veronika Psotková radí: Dotkněte se, vstupte a pošlete to dál / “What's That Iron Thing Hanging Here?” Sculptor Veronika Psotková advises: Touch it, step inside, and share it, Reflex, July 23, 2025, reflections of our selves and our carefully cultivated virtual identities. Visitors can enter the installation, contribute to it with their own bodies, document it, and post it on social media. The installation seamlessly explores the concept of identity, which is fleeting and may not correspond to reality at all.Eva Slunečková: Veronika Psotková: Ach, ta věčná touha po dokonalosti / Oh, that eternal desire for perfection, Elle 28.9.2025
Psotková, together with her husband Roman Kudláček, is the creator of a new exhibition at the Mattoni Museum in Kyselka.Vladimír Meluzín, Mattoni muzeum otevřelo novou expozici. Ukáže, jak se dříve stáčela minerálka / The Mattoni Museum has opened a new exhibit. It shows how mineral water used to be bottled., Deník.cz, 2018 She also created a replica of the statue of Heinrich Kaspar von Mattoni for Kyselka, made of hardened and patinated acrylic.
Realizations 2010–2020 Aquabelles, 17 wire-frame female figures at the Forum shopping center in Liberec 2010 Nine sculptures on the water cascade at Old Town Square in Mladá BoleslavDrobné památky: Kašna Jizera na Staroměstském náměstí v Mladé Boleslavi 2012 Sculpture group entitled On the Wall, garden of the Depo restaurant, Český Krumlov 2012 Rübezahl, Fries mountain hut complex, Strážné in the Giant Mountains 2012–2014 Statues of Bedřich Smetana, Ctirad, and Šárka at the recreational area in Mladá Boleslav 2013 Copy of statue of Heinrich Kaspar von Mattoni in KyselkaMattoniho socha opět stojí v Kyselce, symbolizuje začátek její proměny / Mattoni’s statue stands once again in Kyselka, symbolizing the beginning of its transformation, Czech TV 24, 2013Do parku v Kyselce se vrátila socha zakladatele lázní Mattoniho / The statue of Mattoni, the spa’s founder, has returned to the park in Kyselka, ČRo Karlovy Vary, 2013 2016 Gymnasts, wire figures on the facade of the Sokol Hall in Litvínov 2020 Sculptures for Šatlava at the Žlutice Museum 2020 Altar of St. Joseph, a figural sculpture group depicting St. Joseph with Mary, the Infant Jesus, and angels, in the deconsecrated Church of St. Joseph, Slavětín near Trutnov.Oltář kostela ve Slavětíně zdobí 24 figur / The altar of the church in Slavětín is adorned with 24 figuresKaple sv. Josefa Slavětín / Church of St. Joseph, Ateliér Tsunami 2022 Vinok, Dlouhá Street, PragueVeronika Psotková: VinokSochařka spletla dívku z drátů, která oslavuje Ukrajinu. Zavěsila ji nad hlavy Pražanů / A sculptor created a wire sculpture of a girl celebrating Ukraine. She hung it above the heads of Prague residents, Forbes