During her CYCLE UP! residency in Katowice, Ester, an illustrator based in the Czech Republic, focused on showing the city’s cycling culture and environment on paper using different methods of visual arts and through engaging the locals.

While she was pleasantly surprised by the city’s overall bike-friendliness, she also came across several problematic areas. One of these, the roundabout at the iconic Spodek Stadium, later found its way into her artwork.

Her artistic approach focused on the spontaneous visual memory of bicycles, exploring how these mental images reflect our relationship with cycling culture. Using a process-oriented method, she examined the discrepancy between the visible diversity of bicycles in public spaces and their fragmented representation in the collective imagination.
 

Anyone can draw – imagine a bicycle

At the center of Ester’s work was the project „Draw me a bicycle“, in which she approached random locals and invited them to sketch a bicycle from memory. This collaborative initiative revealed a striking observation: despite the wide variety of bicycles present across the city, most of the spontaneous drawings did not depict a functional bicycle. Building on the collected images, Ester hand-created stamps and organized public stamping workshops, where participants could invent their own bicycles using various bicycle component stamps. This community-driven, process-oriented approach encouraged playful moments within the artistic practice, something Ester sees as a key to loosening fixed patterns of thought and creating space for sustainable transformation.
 

Artistic outcome

Toward the end of her residency, Ester produced a series of posters that merged the public drawings, her own illustrations, and symbolic elements: Animals on bikes emphasize the link between cycling and the natural world, while the Spodek Stadium reappears as a surreal U.F.O., threatening the cycling figures. These works, like the workshops themselves, celebrate imagination as a tool for cultural transformation, one that invites us to playfully reimagine how we live, move, and share space in urban environments.

Ann Inspiration for Future Projects

We are delighted that the CYCLE UP! residency has inspired Ester to further explore the theme of safety in urban cycling. Her next project involves creating a highly visible, fluorescent bike-object with auxiliary wheels and transforming reflective safety vests into fashionable, upcycled patches. Additionally, Ester is considering animating the playful bicycle characters developed during her residency, potentially bringing her artistic vision into new digital formats.

Ester Tajrychová (*1989) is based in České Budějovice, Czech Republic. She graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen in the field of Foreign Languages for Commercial Purposes – English – French, and is also a graduate of the Media and Didactic Illustration(Bc.) and Illustration and Graphics (MgA.) at Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, University of West Bohemia. For her diploma thesis – the author's book "Do not do" she received the Dean's Award. 

She is dedicated to drawing, printed graphics and combined techniques. Currently, it is most often the creation of hand-made rubber stamps and their use in illustration and creative workshops for the public. Since 2021, she is a member of the Association of Czech Graphic Artists HOLLAR Prague.

She focuses on freelance and book illustration and her own production of books. In 2023, she published her illustrated book Do Not Do - or What to Avoid If Your Life is Precious to You. She enjoys projects where she can use illustration to help bring attention to difficult topics and try to enlighten them. For example, in collaboration with the Climate Appeal, the Czech University of Life Sciences, the Velvet Carnival, People in Need and Obraz – Animal Defenders.