Jana Hanka
Artist Statement
I earned my MFA from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1980 and have been living in the USA since 1987. I have participated in several hundred shows in the intervening years – 60 of them as featured artist. I began life as a painter and have slowly evolved into a sculptor, employing clay and bronze. My currently displayed work is mostly ceramic sculpture. I have grown particularly fond of the rough and unpredictable earthy effects created by ash deposits and microclimates within the large fire-breathing dragon of a kiln we use for week-long Anagama Japanese-style wood- firings. It is a force unto itself, beautiful and primal and the work that comes from the kiln is a reflection of that ancient process.
I died falling from a horse and woke up in a hospital a month later – and suddenly nothing is as it seems – ever again. You think you know things and then memories of other places and times and lives start to filter through within the murk of that shaken-up brain and you are less and less sure of yourself and what you think you know. Flying horses and mythic unicorn men mean something. They come out of that semi-conscious world inhabited by children, primitives, artists and those with closed-head injuries, but they are all real in some strange way. Every ancient culture knew that its cripples and mental cases had other gifts – that they were touched by the Finger of God and knew things that others did not. The wounded healer is a part of most mythologies and the shaman is rarely normal or to be bothered with trifles. The place of the artist in society is no longer that of decorator but one who can bring messages back from the other side.
Venues
