Luboš Plný is a Czech painter and conceptual artist, usually classified as a creator of art brut ("raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. Plný is fascinated by medical iconography. An expert in the mysteries of anatomy, he devotes himself – when not drawing – to all sorts of performances where he confronts the limits of pain, which he experiences as an act of purification, transforming suffering into artistic work.

Sometimes I'm asked about the process of writing an illustrated book like the ones I've done in the past. tl;dr: it's not easy, takes a considerable amount of time, and you're bound to doubt yourself along the way.

Here's the rough, behind the scenes, process in 7 steps: 1/7
A lot of reading, researching, writing, and re-writing (seems like ad infinitum at times). This is by far the most time-consuming stage, yet one that I really enjoy. I normally keep disjointed paragraphs on different topics, which I then start grouping to form a narrative.

The image below, part of a study I never got to publish, shows three well-know universal symbols. From top to bottom row: angels (human creatures with bird wings), the ancient ouroboros (serpent or dragon eating its own tail), and the enigmatic flower of life. (1/5) I've long been obsessed with visual archetypes and cultural metaphors. Most recently, I've found solace in the notion of human universals, described as "features of culture, language, behavior, and psyche" that are common across all human societies. (2/5)