Experiential accommodation
Experience the villa differently than just as a visitor. Wake up in an iconic space that slows time, cultivates the mind, and offers peace of mind not normally found in the city.
The paintings of Kateřina Ondrušková invite us to observe a world that seems intimately familiar, yet retains something elusive. In the series presented in the exhibition Observing Joy, we encounter figures set within natural surroundings. Their faces are often turned away, concealed behind leaves, flowers, hair, or the wings of fluttering moths.The subjects may evoke mythological scenes or archetypes drawn from the great narratives of human experience. Ondrušková, however, does not retell stories that belong to others. She draws on her own experience, distilling and abstracting it until her personal way of seeing the world transforms into a mythology of its own.Through their sensitivity to colour, light, and space, the paintings enter into dialogue with the architecture of Villa Volman, allowing its distinctive interiors to resonate in new contexts.
Kateřina Ondrušková (b. 1991, Uherské Hradiště) lives and works in Prague. In 2018, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she studied in the studio of Josef Bolf. In 2020, she completed a residency at the Berlin studio of conceptual artist Robert Barta (b. 1975, Prague). Her work is represented by Double Q Gallery (HKG).Her painting draws on everyday experience, personal memories, and relationships, which she transforms into a symbolic and imaginative world. She works with motifs of nature, animals, and plants, which become carriers of emotions, memories, and interpersonal relationships in her paintings. Themes of motherhood, parenthood, and childhood play an important role in her work, as do questions of shifting identity and the relationship between humans and nature.
Her paintings oscillate between reality and dream. She subjects visual motifs from everyday life to a poetic transformation, creating a space of shared imagination where personal memories intertwine with universal images of safety, intimacy, longing, and memory.
Trafo Gallery is a private exhibition space located in the industrial setting of Hall 14, a former slaughterhouse in Prague’s Holešovice Market. For over 20 years, it has represented prominent artists, extending beyond the generation of its founders. The gallery grew out of the former Trafačka in Prague’s Vysočany, founded by Jan Kaláb, Jakub Nepraš, Michal Cimala, and Blanka Čermáková, who continue to shape its exhibition programme today. In collaboration with leading Czech curators and Czech and international artists, Trafo Gallery presents at least six exhibitions a year, accompanied by distinctive bilingual publications.Trafo Gallery is currently presenting a solo exhibition by Siegfried Herz, High Noon (through 1 November 2026), as well as the group exhibition The Architecture of Painting (20 November 2026 – 3 January 2027) at its Prague 7 premises.Alongside its programme in Prague, the gallery participates in international art fairs and, since 2025, has also regularly presented exhibitions outside its own premises at Villa Volman.