_{B i o g r a p h y}

Tomas Hlavina was born 1966 in Decin, a small town in the north of the Czech Republic. From 1986 - 1989 he studied art restoration and from 1989 - 1992 at the studio of Intermedia Studies under Prof. Milan Knizak at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, graduating with a Masters in 1992. In 1989 he received a five-month scholarship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tbilisi (Georgia) where he studied medieval Georgian painting and architecture.

Hlavina has been exhibiting internationally since 1990, including Ludwig Forum in Aachen (1994), Museum of Modern Art in Vienna (1999), Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona (2000) and Museé d'art Moderne in Saint-Etienne (2004), Prague Biennale 2 (2005), SITE Santa Fe (2006) and the National Gallery in Prague (2007) and most recently as a part of the large permanent collection of Hlavina's works at the Wannieck Gallery in Brno.

Hlavina is a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1997), the Land Niedersachsen Kultusministerium in Germany (2003), and the Lannan Foundation (2006) and was an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony (2004), Santa Fe Art Institute (2006) and the International Studio & Curatorial Program in New York (2009-2010).

Hlavina's objects and installations are usually very minimal pieces, very simple "models" from wood, metal, plastic and string. There is no one single intention or interpretation for any piece, his objects are more a visual metaphor that is open to various contexts and interpretations. One could say that Hlavina's minimalistic works are more closely related to medieval art and to the art of ancient civilizations than to contemporary art. One remarkable feature is the underlying humour that pervades throughout his work.

Tomas Hlavina lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic.