HIDDEN Podcast: Klára Hartlová & Eva Fajčíková | Uncanny Paradise

In this 63rd episode of the HIDDEN Podcast, we speak with painters Klára Hartlová and Eva Fajčíková about their joint exhibition Uncanny Paradise, presented by HIDDEN Gallery. Recorded inside the exhibition, the conversation with Filip Kartousek and guest host Kamil Princ explores the fragile boundary between beauty and unease, and how painting can reveal what lies beneath seemingly familiar worlds.The discussion begins with the concept of the uncanny itself – a place that appears comforting yet slowly becomes unsettling. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, and mythology, the artists reflect on how paradise can transform into a psychological landscape shaped by memory, anxiety, projection, and hidden narratives. From Heidegger, Freud, and Jung to fairy tales, folklore, and Disney’s Bambi, the conversation traces unexpected connections between contemporary painting and the stories that continue to shape our imagination.Klára Hartlová speaks about how psychology and psychoanalytic training influence her artistic practice, why she deliberately leaves room for the viewer’s interpretation, and how dreams, free association, and the unconscious enter her paintings. Eva Fajčíková discusses poisonous plants, mythology, religion, medieval symbolism, vampires, forests, and her experiments with beeswax, moss, scents, and even insect pheromones, expanding painting beyond the purely visual.Together they also discuss artistic collaboration, destroying unsuccessful paintings, finding ideas through reading and dreams, naming artworks, balancing intuition with discipline, and how two distinct artistic languages merged into a single exhibition. One of the highlights of the conversation is an open discussion about interpreting artworks and the relationship between the artist’s intention and the viewer’s reading.👉 Exhibition info: https://hiddengallery.cz/exhibitions/eva-fajcikova-klara-hartlova📍 HIDDEN Gallery, PragueThis conversation is in Czech.