Rony Plesl

Rony Plesl (1965) is an internationally recognized figure in the field of glass sculpture and design. He grew up in Jablonec nad Nisou, a traditional center of glass production, and further developed his interest in this discipline at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague, where he studied in the Glass and Jewelry Studio. He was made head of the school’s Glass Studio in 2008 and was named professor of design and architecture in 2017. After completing his studies, Plesl concentrated mainly on glass design, but in recent years he has worked primarily with artistic glass sculpture. This change in direction has enabled him to more deeply explore the limits of the medium and thus to follow on the tradition of Czech glass artists such as Stanislav Libenský. A specific feature of Plesl’s current work is his use of the Vitrum Vivum technology, which involves the casting of monumental glass sculptures in a monolithic form. He first introduced this technology at the 2018 exhibition Fire Walk with Me and subsequently presented it to foreign audiences at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (2019) and at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). Since then, it has been an integral part of his practice, as has his work with uranium glass, a material which glows under UV light. Thanks to Vitrum Vivum, Plesl has been able to create motifs from his own imagination as well as realistic casts of natural materials. His work is also strongly influenced by the history of art and by his inspiration from old masters. Rony Plesl regularly exhibits in the Czech Republic and abroad, his work can be found in domestic and foreign collections, and in 2025 he and the SIN studio represented the Czech Republic at Expo 2025 in Osaka.