Painting pictures, i.e. entering the creative process, is for me similar
to entering the ocean. The ocean, just like creation, offers a wide, open and at the same time deep space and asks for nothing more than surrender, trust, sincerity and the ability to be fully present.

I am autodidact – I have no formal art education or guidance. My path to painting arose naturally, from an inner need to create and find my own expression. But the longer I walk this path, the more I realize that more essential than the expression itself is the transformation that takes place during creation – inside me and in what is created on the canvas.

The process is important to me. I often watch for long hours with fascination as the colors
on the canvas find their place, layer, disappear and reappear in a slightly different form.
It is a process of maturation that offers me a chance to slow down, to listen and have a quiet conversation – sometimes with my own inner self, sometimes with something that transcends us.

When the painting touches someone else, I perceive it as a small miracle. And it is in moments like these that I realize that the purpose of creation for me is not just to create something,
but to open a space for encounters – with myself, with other people and with the mystery
of life, which cannot be fully named, but can be experienced.
                                                                                                      Jitka Ottová