Simona Dostálová

	Painting is magic. What I try to create is not reality but it’s not fantasy either. What it actually is, what makes a thing real? I always look for things strange and bizarre but at the same time I am attracted to beauty and I strive for some kind of beauty in every single one of my paintings.

 

My brain takes in what is around, mingles it, plays with it, adds something of its own and then lets it out, on a canvas, into the world. Sometimes it’s a process, there are fragments that I consciously want to put in place, ideas that I want to incorporate, and fill in the holes. But sometimes a picture just stands out in my mind on its own and demands to be captured, right now, as it is.

 

          

 

My name is Simona Dostálová and I come from the Czech Republic. Right now I work in a hospital in Prague as a medical doctor. I paint with no formal education in arts hence I’ve always struggled to identify myself as an artist. I started to draw when I was a child but a big change happened when I was sixteen and I became interested in visual arts and popculture and out of nowhere I started creating big poster-like black and white paintings of old Hollywood stars. It was just something what I did for myself a few years while going to grammar school, which I finished successfully.

 

          

 

When I started attending medical school, I was still drawn to arts and went through a short course of oil painting lessons in Prague. That was the point when I learned basics of work with oil paints and a door opened before me. I started with familiar scenes of my hometown, still lifes of objects I liked or found beautiful and interesting. Slowly I immersed myself in a different world full of colors and started exploring more unknown and dangerous waters, metaphorically but also literally because water became one of my favorite themes.

 

          

 

In 2021 I managed to organize my first ever solo exhibition in a small café in Prague - that was a big success for me, as a self-taught artist. Since then I had another two exhibitions, one in the Scout Institute in Prague, the next in Café Jericho in Prague.

 

 

                 

Now I am working on the next projects (which I am very excited about!), and I am still trying to find the best way to express myself and my feelings in my art. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Education:

2023: Practical course of painting, lecturer Jitka Mikulicová, Scholastika, Prague
2016-2022: Master's Degree in General Medicine, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague
2021: Erasmus+ Study Exhange, Brussels
2017: Oil Painting Course for Beginners, Draw Planet, Prague (8 week paid course in art school)

 

Exhibitions:

July - August 2021: Solo Exhibition, 'Summer-Home', Café Ad Astra, Prague
November 2021: Solo Exhibition, 'Hypnosis', Scout Institute, Prague
December 2022: Solo exhibition, 'Alone', Café Jericho, Prague

 

Are you interested in a commission artwork made by Simona just for you?