Unique & Unrepeatable

Václav Krčál about his work:

In the spirit of puppetry I make original hand made wooden marionettes of my own designs.

Everything comes from using linden wood, traditional hand carving techniques with attention to detail and precise craftsmanship, but also knowing that puppetry - like any other discipline - can not only look back at the past and bet on the proven panopticum of fairy tale characters. The scene of the 21st century is already teeming with completely different heroes and villains than our ancestors knew. For accessories, costumes and movement mechanisms I use noble materials such as leather, metal parts, horsehair, etc.

My puppets are collectors' pieces, which, however, meet the demands of a professional acting object through technical work and full functionality. I grew up in a family of puppeteers, and since childhood I understood craft as a way to explore the world. The limitless freedom of creativity fulfills me, as does the awareness of the continuity of mankind's mental endeavors that craft entails. After studying wood carving at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Prague, I studied sculpture with prof. J. Zeithamml at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and also completed an internship at the Academia di Belle Arti in Carrara, Italy. In my works I combine carving craft training with sculptural experience, which reflects knowledge of anatomy as well as artistic feeling. I start from the legacy of the old masters, and I get inspired by contemporary pop-cultural influences.