Painter Soňa Krupičková on How to Face Fear and Dive Into Your Passion
Soňa Krupičková has a unique voice in the world of art. She knows her shadings and feels colors, and her work, strongly inspired by nature, is full of them. She enjoys praise from both amateurs and experts. Customers reward her talent with loyalty and return for more and more paintings. But the painter, who spent years in art studies, only started fully creating and exhibiting in January 2020. After years of working in an office, serious health complications gave her the impulse to return to painting. “What I used to think was possible or impossible is now completely different. It’s never too late to follow your dreams. Limits only exist in your mind. It’s important not to lose hope and not to take yourself too seriously,” she says.
When I enter the airy, sunlit space of Café Záhorský, the smell of coffee tickles my nose. It was Soňa who chose the Dejvice family cafe for our meeting. “I had an exhibition here, and I really liked it,” she explained. Soňa immediately attracts my attention from the other end of the room, and I unmistakably recognize her, although we are seeing each other in person for the first time.
The platinum blonde with a shiny smile radiates light and energy, just like her paintings. I can see her long floral dress when she stands up to greet me. “I never wear pants or shorts,” I learn from Soňa later.
She sits on the bench by the open sliding window and takes a sip from her cup. “Drinking tons of tea stimulates me energetically, but in the evening, I’d have a beer,” she reveals with a smile. In the meantime, I order an espresso tonic and turn on the recorder. What was Soňa’s journey to making a living from her passion?
“If you want to do big things, you should start in your own country.”
“I had already decided in kindergarten that I would be a painter. Or a ballerina. But I’ve never done ballet, so painting was an obvious choice,” Soňa makes me chuckle. She fell in love with art as a little girl and studied it at an art high school in Velké Opatovice and then at Palacký University in Olomouc.
“After school, I lived in Switzerland for a year. But I heard somewhere that if you want to do big things, you should start in your own country. I liked that, so I decided to settle in Brno or Prague,” says Soňa. “Brno was easier because I’m from Třebíč, but I’m also the type of person who prefers to choose a more difficult path. And when I arrived at the Brno train station, it didn’t speak to me. But the Prague main train station immediately grabbed my heart, and the decision was made.”
In the fall of 2014, Soňa moved into a house in Prague 10. “I stayed with yogis, and I lived the lifestyle. You can notice the spiritual overlap in my paintings even today. Nature, plants, and life are a miracle, and we should celebrate them daily.”
To pay her bills, Soňa worked for half a year in a flower shop and then found a stable position in an office.
“Life is about overcoming our fears.”
“Working in an office was completely different from what I was used to. Stimulating the left hemisphere definitely enriched me. I also met my husband through work.” But there was no space left for painting, and the break from creating lasted six years. Then Soňa received alarming news from the doctors. “I had surgery and then was on sick leave for four months.” That’s when Soňa bought canvases and paints to pass the time during her recovery and started painting again.
“I couldn’t physically go back to the office. I just couldn’t. My heart told me to keep creating. But a person’s greatest enemy is their head. I thought that no one would be interested in my paintings. However, around that time, I was invited to an auction, and I thought to myself, ‘Would it be possible to show my paintings here?'” Soňa decided to ask the person responsible. “They called me in three weeks, that it would!”
“I threw away my preconceptions about whether my paintings would be liked and started creating and exhibiting. Whenever I saw that there was space for an exhibition somewhere, I simply asked. Never stop believing and dreaming. I consider the fact that I started painting again to be one of my greatest achievements.”
“I create to feel happy and fulfilled.”
Today, Soňa lives with her husband in a house with a garden near Prague. “I’ve got all I need there – tomatoes, lavender, a pond… Last year there was a green toad!” Soňa’s eyes light up. “I grew up in a block of flats, but I spent weekends and holidays at my grandmother’s in nature. I raised chickens and ducklings and rescued bugs and spiders. I need to be surrounded by nature. Nature inspires my work.”
To work, Soňa needs a harmonious environment. “I can’t work at the snap of a finger. I have to be in the right mood. I work from home, and I call the living room with the kitchen my studio,” she laughs. “I need a lot of space because I’m a megalomaniac and I like to make big paintings. There is a different intensity and dynamic, and it’s more touching on the big canvas. It’s louder. Some people encourage me to do smaller things – that they sell better, but I don’t want to do what everybody else does.”
Soňa paints with acrylics, and her two main styles are abstraction with a brush, spatula, or a combination of them and then abstraction with concrete motifs. “I’m not pre-drawing anything – that wouldn’t be spontaneous. I start with brushstrokes all over the format, and as I create, I search, discover, and add paint until I feel it. Authenticity is important to me. I create to feel happy and fulfilled. When I’m happy, I put it in the paintings, and then everyone is happy.”
“As long as I can hold a brush and palette, I will create.”
“My paintings are for people who like colors, those who need a kick, to forget mundane daily worries, and feel happy. They are for people who like nature, positivity, and openness. Everyone can find their own story in them. I always say that there are no wrong interpretations. Whatever story people see in them is the right one.”
Soňa prefers personal meetings with her customers at openings, where she exhibits and comments on her paintings. “I am not represented by a curator; I do everything myself. It’s very personal to me, and no one can express my feelings better than me,” she explains. “I prefer to pass the painting from hand to hand. To see how excited a person is about their new painting is the greatest satisfaction.”
“I want to improve and deepen my technique in my work constantly. It’s about painting, painting, painting. Then the results show themselves, and it snowballs,” says Soňa. “I’ve done a big chunk of work, but a huge chunk is in front of me. As long as I can hold a brush and palette, I will create.”
Check out Soňa Krupičková ‘s work, and don’t miss her next exhibition:
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