"Klara Kristalova is a storyteller who uses the plasticity of sculpture to build micro worlds, where something peculiar has just happened or is about to happen. Here she relates to a sculpture tradition that has its roots several hundred years in the past. In this tradition the three-dimensional artwork is seen as a means of three-dimensionally "educating" the viewer in a realm inhabited by both the viewer and the artwork simultaneously through their common physical relationship to the room." - Art critic Anders Olofsson
Klara Kristalova is a sculptor who works predominantly in glazed ceramics and stoneware. Born in 1967 in former Czechoslovakia, her parents moved to Sweden when she was only a year old, which is where the artist still lives and works. Kristalova employs a deliberately imperfect Meissen porcelain technique, working in a similar fashion, but with larger forms and figures that evoke the vulnerability within the human condition. Her constructed characters impart a feeling of loneliness, if not quiet contemplation. Drawing upon Nordic storytelling, fairy tales, traditional myths, and other literary sources, Kristalova conveys basic human emotions such as fear, sadness, desire, love, and even guilt. These emotions connect back to the artist’s memories and childhood, and as such often manifest in fantastical forms. Nature, creatures of nature, and the natural forms of the landscape always play a role in Kristalova’s mysterious and sometimes dark works.
Kristalova studied at the Royal University College of Fine Art, Stockholm. Her works have been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows in London, Paris, Miami, New York, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Baltimore, Santa Fe, Stockholm, West Palm Beach, and Santa Barbara. Kristalova’s first survey at an American Museum was in 2014 at the Norton Museum of Art. She has also exhibited at The National Museum of Stockholm, and at SITE Santa Fe. She has created numerous public commissions in Sweden such as the memorial in the public garden park in Tungelsta, Stockholm; the entrance to Karlstad public park; and sculptures at Ostersunds University. Kristalova’s work is part of public collections including the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden and the National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.