FESTKA x ONDRASH & KASPAREK

Festka's collabs with artists go as far back as the very beginnings of the company. From the word go, the idea to work with graphic designers and painters was one of the foundations the brand was to be built on. And it was the early Festka fixies hand-painted and decorated by renowned artists that got the brand into the media and the awareness of the bike-loving community and curators who ask us even today to loan them for exhibitions.

Fast forward a few years to 2019 when Festka stunned everybody with the Porcelain bike, the collab with the illustrator Michal Bačák. That was the moment the world realised we were taking this much further than anybody else in the industry.

Today we are very excited about our latest project of this kind – a collaboration with the artistic duo Ondrash&Kasparek. The former, Ondřej Konupčík, is one of the most sought after tattoo artists in the country and it was when he was tattooing the latter, Radim Kašpárek, that they realised there was scope for creative cooperation. But it wasn't until tattoo studios had to close due to Covid that Ondřej found himself with enough free time on his hands to join Radim in developing his experimental approach to abstract painting. The method Radim had been tinkering with for some years and that they've further perfected together is based on transferring acrylic paints from the surface of water onto canvas. The resulting paintings take the form of hypnotising swirls and gnarls composed of carefully selected colour palettes. The skillset needed to get a good result here is quite different from painting with brushes and so are the tools of their trade. However, the necessary talent and ability to judge what's good and what isn't remains the same.

The collab with Festka presented the guys with a brand new challenge – to transfer the floating swirls and gnarls of paint onto a 3D object for the first time. The task in hand presented them with a number of new obstacles that it took a lot of experimenting to overcome but they did and the result is, well… nothing short of stunning.

The process starts with the artists creating a painting that sets the colour palette for the frame. Although the shapes are unrepeatable, close likeness is guaranteed. The painting is not just a test. If you want a conversation piece, it is available for sale.

The first of a handful of our frames to be decorated by Ondrash&Kasparek is a Festka Scalatore featured here, equipped with a Shimano DuraAce groupset, ENVE HBs and seatpost and 3T stem. If you're interested in the featured piece or would like to talk to us about the other bikes from this collab, please get in touch...

written by: Janek Jaros
photos: Tom Hnida