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Tomas Hlavina is an extremely interesting artist. He finishes all his work with a minimal output. However, this output in the result of hard and long work. its beginning is a complex concept taken from literature which is then developed by the artist and structured by a final code. This code/cipher (i.e. its pattern of lines) is then presented as output in order to make the audience search for its own ways of deciphering. Tomas Hlavina does not push to get his works completed. On the contrary - he watches all worldly objects with contemplation and all of his works of art can be seen as an autonomous reaction of how he encounters reality within its vast spectrum of meanings. This reality even includes unreal things as well as irrational concepts, and that may be why Tomas Hlavina is searching for the final form of his weird mandalas and koan* for such a long time. Even though I have made use of the terminology of eastern philosophy, no outward resemblance can be found here. Only the internal structures of Tomas Hlavina's work are formed in such a way that they challenge and remind us of the absurdity of the koan and the meditative force of mandalas.

Milan Knizak, General Director of the National Gallery in Prague

* Koan in Japanese Zen-Buddhism is used for sayings, questions and answers of the Zen masters which cannot be grasped by reason.

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Hlavina's work is the result of long and accurate conceptual study of a chosen text, usually philosophical, which becomes cross-reference to a simple, precise object which functions as a meditative centre. His work is extremely personal and has no comparison in the Czech environment.

Milan Knizak, Rector of the Accademy of Fine Arts in Prague