Lukáš Novák

Lukáš Novák (1987), a native of Nový Bor, is a leading contemporary artist and designer of glass objects, vases, tableware and lighting for Czech and foreign brands. His work reflects perfect craftsmanship, thanks to which he can weave new, often very daring forms into objects. His works are never mere form without content; they range from satirical commentary on current social events to timeless themes concerning man and his own self. The theme of the self is discussed in the monumental realization Ego Child. The artisanally demanding hanging object, melted with a special technique and printed with an embossing method originating from the Middle Ages, can serve as a wall lamp on which we can recognize a human face, covered with inscriptions such as "ego race", "ultra fragile man", "holy ego" or "hot girls cold beer'. By layering glass, the artist achieves a drawing of a human face and at the same time refers to the layeredness and ambiguity of the human personality, which is made up of layers of experience, social formation and upbringing. Together with the work Purge, also presented at this exhibition, these are the author's very first works processed with this complex technique of fused glass sculpture. With his realizations, Lukáš Novák moves on the border between design and free art. In the fall of 2021, during the Prague Design Week, he presented a series of free wall-mounted glass objects, which are highly valued by collectors, called Pretty Little Mirage, which is loosely followed by a series of wall-mounted crystals called Pretty Mirage, presented at this exhibition, which are each time a unique composition of cuts in glass or color gradient. In them, he works mainly with light, which finalizes and completes the tone of the work itself, which plays with the truth of human perception. Using optical glass, the author tests the possibilities of human vision and achieves mystification or optical illusions. Lukáš Novák's works have been presented in Paris, Milan and Brussels and represented in important public and private collections around the world.