*The Voynich manuscript is an indecipherable codex from the 14th century written in an unknown script with illustrations of extra-terrestrial plants.
In the Voynich manuscript series, Klára takes a closer look at the most mysterious book on Earth. However, not at the textual but rather the illustrative part, without the ambition to decipher the execution - the strokes, color intensity, analyzing whether the author was in a rush or calmly precise. Instead, she transformed the naive, obviously amateur plant illustrations into a more realistic image.
She used baroque lighting, flower still life, and scientific drawings from the 19th century. She created an intriguing series of paintings, reconstructing their true form (which Klára has never seen) according to schematic illustrations of someone who passed away centuries ago. The entire process is remarkable. The series consists of roughly 80 plants (the book presents approximately 150); thus, the project is ongoing. So far, the paintings have been displayed at three exhibitions, gradually, as Klára was composing the manuscript. Although the series goes beyond the scope of Klára's usual artwork, it is one of the most praised projects among the spectators. Because of its scale and creation process, it is a truly unique piece.
Klára Sedlo (*1993) is a distinctive young art generation artist in Czechia. She became an outstanding and successful talent while studying at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating, she rooted herself in her painting manuscript and established a firm stance in the Czech artistic scene.
Her exhibitions take place in Czechia and abroad (USA, Great Britain, Italy, Germany,...). Her work can also be seen in collections in the US, Europe, Japan, and Australia. In her pieces, she focuses on figurative painting. She enjoys exploring and depicting psychological conditions (her graduation work was dedicated to obsessive-compulsive disorder); however, she also utilizes elements of pop culture, kitsch, or classic horrors and humor. Although she works mainly with traditional two-dimensional paintings, her art commonly expands into site-specific installations, performances, or video art to present her visions in context and simultaneously show the complexity of the human inner world.
