AWARENESS ARTIST - EVENT PRODUCER - PHOTOGRAPHER - PERSONAL BRAND ADVISOR
After moving to the UK from the Czech Republic at the start of the century, my initial training was with the University of the Arts London. I began in 2004 with a Foundation Course in Art and Design. I progressed to a BA in 2008 in Specialist Fashion Makeup Design, meanwhile working with a range of fascinating photographers and clients such as Hardy Amies, MTV, the BBC, Dame Joan Collins DBE, Erin O’Connor, Carmen Dell'Orefice, Yasmin Le Bon and Pamela Anderson.
This awakened my love of portrait photography, which I developed through my MA studies in fashion photography University of the Arts London, culminating in winning the award for the best photograph of the year among the graduate student body in 2010. That opened the next phase in my career, photographing subjects such as business gurus professors Lynda Gratton, Dominic Houlder, Andrew Scott of London Business School, US fashion designer Kenneth Cole and a broad range of non-commercial subjects as I developed my technique and began to exhibit in the UK, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Also in London, I undertook a foundation course in psychotherapy and counselling at Regent’s University, to understand my portrait photography subjects in depth and improve my ability to work with the dynamics of artistic groups.
While continuing my work as a portrait photographer, I was invited to join the London Season – which revives the traditional debutante scene – as its Creative Director. This was sparked by my thesis which researched new beginnings in a woman’s life.
From 2009 to 2017, I produced Queen Charlotte’s Ball and the Berkeley Dress Show, designing the choreography, and styling the debutantes. My work with the London Season won worldwide coverage, including display on the front pages of the UK Financial Times and Daily Telegraph. The London Season attracted several high-profile clients from the US
and China, which opened the opportunity to produce and inspire other creative events.
Meanwhile, I continued exhibiting my portrait photography and working with private clients. I held two solo shows of my work at the Keith Ewart studio in Chelsea: a celebration of women through their life stages in 2013 and later “Bohemian Style” – an interactive display of my work together with Czech inspirations (introducing wines from Bohemia) – in 2018.
But ahead of the lockdown, I produced the “No More Manifesto” exhibition at the SAAS Gallery on the Chelsea embankment, in aid of abused women. Lockdown – spent on the Isle of Skye – was tough but an extraordinary opportunity to reflect on my work and its inspiration, leading to being selected by the curators of the Royal Academy for the 2022 summer exhibition, with five shows at the Chelsea Arts Club.
This was the impetus for my current focus on sustainability: creating images that, rather than being doom-laden, celebrate creativity and art in caring for our planet. “Left Behind”, my photograph featured in the Royal Academy 2022 summer exhibition, showed how abandoned plastic containers had been transformed into floats for a fish farm, being of practical use as an example of recycling, but even more importantly, expressing an abstract beauty.
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