As if our hands had a language of their own – speaking to us beyond words. In addition to verbal expression, they communicate through gestures and subtle signs. The exhibition Samousnu, whose title stems from an unspecified dream of Nik Timková, draws the viewer’s attention to the motif of the hand. The showcased works – both recent and earlier pieces – demonstrate how hands appear consistently across the artists’ practices, explored through varying forms and contexts.
In Jakub Hošek’s early paintings, hands emerged as severed, often grotesquely stylized claws. In his most recent works, however, their lines stretch beyond the canvas edge, morphing into organic, cramp-like shapes reminiscent of branches or roots. Words such as Dissolve, Anger, and Losing Potential, combined with motifs of stitched patches and scars, serve as metaphors for our imperfect attempts to restore wholeness from trauma and rupture.
In the work of Nik Timková, the hand evokes fortune-telling rituals and ambiguous gestures—it may take the form of a glove, a vessel, or an oversized spatial object that can be entered, physically or mentally. Her monumental tracksuit-shaped hand, for instance, can be read as a metaphor for communication, protection, and vulnerability. Her large-scale textile installations and soft sculptures—featuring materials such as denim, corduroy, batik-dyed, or translucent fabrics—draw on principles of collage, stitching and layering fragments similarly to how painterly surfaces are built.
The exhibition thus underscores a tension between the suggestion of injury and the potential for healing. Through the way human gestures are articulated across Hošek’s stitched canvases and Timková’s textile objects, the hand becomes a universal symbol of connection and manipulation—bridging the material world with inner, even magical, meanings.
Jakub Hošek (1979, Prague) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His work is rooted in the confrontation of flat surfaces, sharp lines, and text fragments, with a key technique known as cut painting—using hand-cut stencils layered on canvas instead of traditional brushwork. His inspiration comes from album covers, comics, punk, pop art, 1980s New York street art, and post-internet aesthetics. Hošek’s paintings often combine abstract linework with surreal stylized figures, interwoven with textual snippets sourced from songs, films, or literature. He is also active as a curator, DJ, and graphic designer. In 2005 and 2007, he was a finalist for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award. His works are part of collections both in the Czech Republic and internationally.
Nik Timková (1986, Košice) is a Slovak multimedia artist based in Prague. She studied at the Faculty of Arts in Košice, Central Saint Martins in London, and the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm. Her practice integrates new media, installation, sculptural processes, and textiles, often focusing on the deconstruction of garments in art. She creates textile objects and digital collages that merge pop culture, esotericism, and gothic aesthetics. Since 2015, she has collaborated within the collective Björnsonova, addressing feminist and ecofeminist themes. Her work includes performances and rituals that open up space for collective imagination and protest. In 2017, she was a finalist for the Oskár Čepan Award.
