> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # When the Landscape Walks Back - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/karolina-netolicka-catapult-artist-in-focus/ - Published: 2026-10-29T03:25:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-29T03:24:59.000Z - Description: Meet Prague artist Karolína Netolická, whose large soft pastel canvases bring together dark forests, fragmented bodies and traces of overproduction. - Author: Dominique Catherina Foertig - Tags: Artist in Focus, Nature & Ecology, Body & Feminism, Painting, Prague, #artist ## Karolína Netolická in Prague, Soft Pastel on Canvas Legs appear first. In tights printed with spots or paisley, in bare pink or flat orange, they hang from branches, cross in mid-air or stand in leaf litter, while the bodies they belong to are mostly cut away. Around them a dark forest holds balloons, bubbles and plastic bags the way an orchard holds fruit. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: legs in patterned tights hang among white branches over a dark ground with black balloons.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-rustling-soft-pastel-2024-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Rustling, 2024, soft pastel on canvas, 236 x 165 cm. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: collaged forest scene with fragmented torsos, leaves, balloons and a patterned green ground.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-division-points-soft-pastel-2025-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Division points, 2025, soft pastel on canvas, 328 x 300 cm. Photo: Oto Palán. Courtesy the artist. **Karolína Netolická** **Born:** Prague, 1993 **Based in:** Prague, Czech Republic **Medium:** Soft pastel on canvas, drawing **Education:** Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, drawing studio of Jiří Petrbok, 2016 to 2022 **Recent Exhibitions:** *Harmony of Chaos*, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg, 2026 *Vertical horizons*, 105 Gallery, Třeboň, 2026 *Waves*, Nová Síň, Prague, 2025 **Website:** [karolina-netolicka.cz](https://www.karolina-netolicka.cz/en/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Instagram:** [@karolinanetolicka](https://www.instagram.com/karolinanetolicka/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Photography:** Oto Palán, Tomáš Vrtal **Image Courtesy:** Courtesy the Artist The scale makes this physical. Karolína Netolická works on canvases that run to several metres and rubs dry pastel in with her fingers, so the surface keeps a record of touch. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: the artist works on a large pastel canvas in her studio, beside a trolley of materials.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-studio-pastel-prague-studio-01.webp) Karolína Netolická working in her studio. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: eight pale legs radiate around a ribbed grey form against a green patterned shape on black.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-chthulucene-organism-soft-pastel-2026-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Chthulucene organism, 2026, soft pastel on canvas, 270 x 163 cm. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist. The figures read as part tree, part person, part product, and none of them seems to notice what surrounds them. > *Risk rarely arrives as an event. In these paintings it settles in slowly, as one more soft surface among the others.* The argument is made in the gaps between things that should not touch. Netolická describes a dialogue between human and nature that has collapsed into monologue, and she tests it with the leftovers of overproduction: balloons, bags, tights. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: pale legs among a tall mass of pastel-tinted bubbles on a black ground with white dotted webs.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-tender-agregates-soft-pastel-2026-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Tender agregates, 2026, soft pastel on canvas, 302 x 164 cm. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: pale figure folded among white balloons, red apples, a blue plastic bag and a black sphere.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-breeders-soft-pastel-acrylic-2026-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Breeders, 2026, soft pastel, acrylic and micropencil on canvas, 300 x 218 cm. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist. In Collectors, hooded figures in white jackets bend over a night lawn and drag cloths heavy with balloons, as if bringing in a harvest nobody planted. The hoods erase faces, yet the exhibition text at Nová Síň notes that the figures in this series are modelled on the artist's own body, photographed on a phone. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: hooded figures in white jackets drag patterned cloths full of glossy balloons across a dark lawn.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-collectors-soft-pastel-2023-24-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Collectors, 2023-24, soft pastel on canvas, 430 x 215 cm. Photo: Oto Palán. Courtesy the artist. *Walkers* carries the same unease into a wood. A figure in a red coat steps between pigeons, another in blue leans into a trunk, and a pigeon perches on each hood where a face would be. Her statement speaks of a woman as heroic wanderer through places she knows, and here the wanderer seems to have been replaced by a flock. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: a figure in a red hooded coat steps between pigeons beside a figure in blue, with a pile of paving blocks.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-walkers-soft-pastel-2024-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Walkers, 2024, soft pastel on canvas, 310 x 215 cm. Photo: Oto Palán. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: red legs hang from a pale leafy mass above a glowing blue-white bulb on a black ground.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-condenzation-of-desire-soft-pastel-2026-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Condenzation of desire, 2026, soft pastel on canvas, 215 x 153 cm. Photo: Tomáš Vrtal. Courtesy the artist. Darkness works as method rather than backdrop. She builds from details toward larger wholes, then shrouds them in black that she treats as a space where light might still arrive. Born in Prague in 1993, Netolická studied at the Academy of Fine Arts there from 2016 to 2022, in the drawing studio, and won first place at the Critics Award for Young Painters in 2022\. ![Karolína Netolická, Nová Síň, Prague: large unframed pastel canvases hang from wooden battens in a white skylit room.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-waves-nova-sin-prague-2025-installation-01.webp) Karolína Netolická, Waves, installation view, Nová Síň, Prague, 2025\. Photo: Oto Palán. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: pastel painting of spotted deer, a stag and a sheep-like creature among birch trunks under a red sun.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-waves-soft-pastel-2023-24-work.webp) Karolína Netolická, Waves, 2023-24, soft pastel on canvas, 505 x 312 cm. Photo: Oto Palán. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Prague: pastel detail with a red disc and pale curved forms over dense green strokes.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-waves-soft-pastel-2023-24-detail-01.webp) Karolína Netolická, detail of Waves, 2023-24, soft pastel on canvas. Courtesy the artist. That training seems visible in the line, which stays patient at every scale. Six large canvases were shown together at Nová Síň in 2025, the year of Green Tears at LiTE-HAUS in Berlin. This month her work is part of Harmony of Chaos at Künstlerhaus Sootbörn in Hamburg, on view until 25 October. She names Ulrich Beck, Byung-Chul Han and Donna Haraway among her readings. In most of these canvases the light comes from an inflated thing, a balloon or a bubble, and it stays unclear whether it is rescue or residue. ![Karolína Netolická, LiTE-HAUS, Berlin: pastel painting of a pale green bouncy castle with animals above a patterned bench and white sphere.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-lite-haus-berlin-2025-installation-03.webp) Karolína Netolická, installation view, LiTE-HAUS Galerie, Berlin, 2025\. Courtesy the artist. ![Karolína Netolická, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg: two large pastel paintings with apples and balloons on a white gallery wall.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/10/karolina-netolicka-kuenstlerhaus-sootboern-hamburg-2026-installation-02.webp) Karolína Netolická, installation view, Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg, 2026\. Courtesy the artist. --- **About the Artist** **Karolína Netolická** Born in Prague in 1993, she works in soft pastel on large canvases and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. [Website](https://www.karolina-netolicka.cz/en/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/karolinanetolicka/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About the Locations** **Galerie Nová síň, Prague** A gallery in central Prague, tied to the tradition of the Union of Fine Artists founded in 1898. [Website](https://www.novasin.org/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/galerienovasin/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **LiTE-HAUS Galerie + Projektraum, Berlin** A non-profit gallery and project space founded in 2016, with a focus on emerging and underrepresented artists. [Website](https://www.lite-haus.net/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/litehausgalerie/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, Hamburg** Artist studios and gallery space in a Bauhaus building, running since 1992. [Website](https://www.kuenstlerhaus-sootboern.de/?ref=catapult-platform.art) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/kuenstlerhaus%5Fsootboern/?ref=catapult-platform.art) **About Catapult Contemporary** This is an Artist in Focus feature published by Catapult Contemporary, an independent editorial platform for contemporary art, based in Vienna. We publish exhibition reviews, artist features, interviews, and critical context, with a focus on emerging and mid-career practices from Europe and beyond. [catapult-platform.art](https://www.catapult-platform.art/) · [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/catapultcontemporary/?ref=catapult-platform.art) Want to be featured? [Submit your work →](https://www.catapult-platform.art/submit/)