For more than fifty years, Ota Prouza has lived in Brtníky, in northern Bohemia, in a residential institution for people with intellectual disabilities. Although he can neither read nor write, he has developed a remarkably rich visual world.
Despite living in a rural environment surrounded by fields and forests, Ota Prouza is fascinated by the activity of large cities. Highways, railway lines, interchanges, and urban infrastructures all feed his imagination. He regularly collects books, calendars, and magazines featuring images of cities, which become sources of inspiration for his work.
His drawings reveal sprawling cities viewed from above, as if seen through the eyes of a bird. Animals, particularly hornets, inhabit the treetops and appear to overlook futuristic architectural networks, where reality and imagination merge.
Ota Prouza draws with pencil, felt-tip pens, and ballpoint pens on sheets of paper that he assembles into long strips extending over several metres. His choice of colours changes according to his mood and the events taking place around him. Working with great concentration, he often spends several weeks completing a single drawing, creating compositions of remarkable density and singular energy.