About me

Email: Karak6aj@hotmail.com

Address: Katerina Karaskova,
Pelhrimov, Czech Republic.

Personal statement

Painting in developing countries is for me a way to make contact with local people and learn more about their lives, not only from their stories but also through their own pictures. I am particularly interested in the views of the women, and how they see the world is changing. All these factors give me great inspiration for my own work. I want to know what is beneath the surface of a culture, and how the dynamics of development is affecting the people.

Studies and Work

I studied law at Charles University in Prague but always wanted to become acquainted with foreign cultures. This is why I have often travelled and worked outside the Czech Republic.

During a 6 month journey across Mexico and Central America in 2003, I got to know a little about the life of people from so called developing world, this has fostered my interest in human rights and development issues.

So after arriving back I went to do a 6 months internships in London at an organisation that supports the development of rights and the status of women around the world. My work was mainly focused on Latin America.

Then I felt keen to gain some more first hand experience of the difficulties indigenous people face in Latin America. So I left for Guatemala where I spent the following 6 months working as an international accompanier in three Mayan villages affected by the civil war in the 1980's.

From February 2006 I started to work in Caritas Prague as a coordinator of the Ugandan project. In the autumn 2006 I went to Uganda and spent a year preparing the operation of the Uganda-Czech Buikwe hospital.

After a half year break dedicated to the Matriarchal project in India and Indonesia, I came back to Uganda. From May 2008 to December 2010 I dedicated myself to the preparation and implementation of the School project – the establishment of St. John Nepomuk Primary school Kitula, and the development of St. Lwanga Technical Institute Malongwe.

Currently I am working fully on matriarchal project; writing, painting and drawing for the book and the art exhibition.

Artistic projects

• Matriarchal project in co-operation with Simon Bird - Zapotecs in Tehuantepec (Mexico), Kuna Indians from the San Blas Islands (Panama), Khasi and Garo in Meghalaya (India), Muslim Minangkabau from Sumatra (Indonesia) from 2005 ongoing project

• Ugandan life from Baganda to Karamojaland 2006 – 2010

• People of Maize (life at Guatemalan countryside 10 years after the end of the civil war) - a series of the portraits and scenes from the Guatemalan countryside 2005

• Series of aquarelles of Ancient Egyptian monuments, Mummies and desert countryside of Egypt and Jordan 2004

• Series of aquarelles focusing on nature and volcanoes of Central America ( Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) 2003
  
  

Exhibition:

“People of Maize“