Irena Czepcová

Irena Czepcová (born 1986) is a glass artist and co-founder of the penocze studio, which focuses on original product design, interior lighting, and site-specific light installations. She studied at the Secondary School of Glassmaking in Valašské Meziříčí in Jaroslav Koléšek’s glass modeling studio, later expanding her education in glass cutting. She continued her studies at the Glass Studio of Ilja Bílek at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem. She also completed a scholarship at the University of Sunderland in the UK and the Emerging Artist residency program at the Pilchuck Glass School in the USA. In addition to her own creative work, she is also involved in teaching.

Her work is characterized by experimentation and the search for new possibilities within glassmaking techniques, which she combines and pushes beyond their traditional applications. Her practice explores light, physicality, the memory of a place, and decor, while working with the tension between fine art and functional design. An important part of her approach is working with glass waste, to which she gives new form and function through upcycling.

Czepcová is known for combining an intuitive artistic approach with precise technical solutions. In the series Frozen in Time II , for example, she visually blurs the lines between blown and cast glass, creating objects that sit on the border between vases and sculptures, where glass transforms into a material that bears the imprint of the body, movement, and time.

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