Klara Kristalova is a Czech-born, Sweden-based sculptor whose figurative works combine human features with animals, plants, insects and imagined creatures. Working primarily in glazed ceramics and stoneware, she also uses bronze, wood, drawing, watercolour and collage. Her deliberately tactile surfaces and shifting scales give familiar forms an unsettled presence. Fairy tales, memory and observations of the natural world inform scenes that often resist fixed identities: a figure may seem vulnerable and threatening, domestic and wild, or caught between growth and decline. Based in Norrtälje, Sweden, Kristalova treats transformation as both a material process and a way to examine emotional and ecological change.
In 2026 she represents Sweden in the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, alongside Benjamin Orlow and Tori Wrånes. Her installation Lust for Life centres on a monumental fallen tree that also evokes a reclining female body. Ceramic, bronze and wooden creatures occupy the trunk, turning it into a shared habitat marked by dependence, endurance and instability. A related outdoor sculpture, Bird Disguise, extends the work’s interest in hybrid bodies and uncertain belonging. Presented from 9 May to 22 November 2026, the pavilion situates Kristalova’s practice within a broader exploration of myth, coexistence and renewal under social and environmental pressure.