Rafael Smet

I am a painter with a studio in Prague. In 2024 I completed my bachelor's degree in Prague under the guidance of Roman Franta and Lukáš Miffek. My work is predominantly figurative, supplemented with abstract elements. I work primarily with acrylic and oil and focus on layered compositions that emphasize airiness, contrast and light. The paintings balance precise construction with an open, contemplative atmosphere.

The work focuses on figurative motifs, often intertwined with architectural or landscape structures. I am primarily interested in aesthetics as a starting point – composition, light, space – but equally important to me are the narratives that emerge when observing an image. These narratives are never fixed; rather than telling a specific story, my paintings create situations that invite viewers to project their own experiences, memories or internal dialogues.

Through carefully constructed layers and controlled contrasts, I strive to create spaces that appear to be suspended in time – silent, ambiguous and open. Figures and structures function less as descriptive elements and more as carriers of atmosphere, leaving the image unspoken and mentally active in the viewer’s mind.

——

Perfect painting technique, realistic depiction, imagination and fiction represent the key points of Smet's works. These main aspects distance the author's work from the previous generation of painters. The objectively austere conceptual approach gives way to fanciful fabrication. Abstract conception or abstracting painterly style transforms into a detailed examination of reality. The flat, seemingly hurried brushstrokes are transformed in Smet's paintings in a carefully constructed spatial form. Controversial socially engaged themes were omitted and the focus became an introspective probe into the alternative life of the author's ego.

Ivona Raimanova 2025

CV

Rafael Smet 

*2000

Education

2011-2019 - Bohumil Hrabal Grammar School in Nymburk, Komenského 779, 288 40 Nymburk

2021-2024 - Art & Design Institute, Painting Studio (doc. ak. painter Roman Franta), Slezská 68, 130 00 Prague 3 – Vinohrady

Courses

2020 - Scholastica, Římská 103/12,
Vinohrady, 120 00
Prague 2, Product Design (Matěj Coufal, Eduard Herrmann)

2024-2025 - Scholastica, Římská 103/12,
Vinohrady, 120 00
Prague 2, Painting (Jitka Mikulicová)

2025 - Academy of Fine Arts, U Akademie 172/4, 170 00 Prague 7-Bubeneč, figurative drawing (Radim Langer)

Internships

2023 - HYB4 - Hybernská Campus, Hybernská 4

2023 - ECHO BRUSSELS - Baasbergstraat 5

1600 Oudenaken (Sint-Pieters-Leeuw)

Belgium

Exhibitions

2025

RÖ-IGHE, Dimension Výtoň, Prague

2024

The beginning of something, IN gallery, Prague

Group exhibitions

2025

Event Horizon, Pošta Gallery, Dubá

Dream and Nightmare, Rockopera, Prague

Axis X, Schola Humanitas, Litvínov

The struggle for power, Rockopera, Prague

2024 

Art & Design Institute 10 years, Church of Our Lady of the Snows, Prague

 Don't Look Away, Critics' Gallery, Prague

 Up the stairs, Schola Humanitas, Litvínov

2023 

Are we too many?, Schola Humanitas, Litvínov

Nymburk Art Salon, Municipal House, Nymburk

Art of Sugarlandia, House of Joy, Prague