I was born in 1992 in Bratislava. Even as a small child I
spent a lot of time drawing. I owned dozens of coloring pages of forest
animals, which I constantly redrew so that I could paint them again. For me,
painting meant a refuge where I could be myself from a young age.
I grew up in a part of the city that is in the immediate
vicinity of the area with the highest level of protection. The Sandberg, a sand
hill with a lot of fossils, protected plant species and former caves that were
once part of a prehistoric sea, is a feature of this landscape area. All these
elements have influenced me and they still appear in my work today.
I graduated in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in
Bratislava. During my studies, I completed two study stays abroad. A half-year
stay in 2017-2018 at Newcastle University in England, and a year-long stay at
the Academie Royale des Beaux Art in Brussels in 2018-2019. These stays greatly
influenced the direction of my work. After my return, in 2019 I was awarded
first place in the prestigious Painting of the Year competition of the VUB
Foundation with the work The Immense Depth, which was created during my studies
on an Erasmus+ stay at the Academie Royale des Beaux-arts in Brussels.
The piece The Immense Depth represented a set of paintings
that I worked on throughout the semester. The original subjects depicted
organic abstract forms. I felt empty, without content while creating them. I
didn't want to paint another painting with this subject. Instead of repainting,
I decided to cut them up and separate them into good and bad parts. Subsequently,
I physically shaped the painting and deformed it by sewing. I replaced the
brush and paint with my own hands, needle and thread. It is a work at the
interface of an expanded painting, a textile object and recycling. I never
returned to painting similar subjects, that's when my journey to myself just
began.
I took watercolor paints, a sketchbook and went out into
nature. I painted in the botanical gardens of Belgium, on the sandy plains of
Sandberg, in the rocky valleys of the Western and High Tatras, on the sunny
Štiavnické hills, as well as in the difficult-to-access gorges of the Slovak
Paradise. I spent the last summer creating on the plains and underground of the
Slovak Karst National Park.
The central theme of my work has long been the landscape. In
my paintings, I focus mainly on Slovak nature. I show the landscape through
organic and inorganic natural formations in the form of abstract structures and
shapes. Currently, my artistic expression is becoming concrete. My painting
reflects my relationship with nature in the country in which I live, as well as
the issue of environmental protection. In addition to working in the studio, I
also pay a lot of attention to creating in the open air. Before I start
painting on the canvas, I head to the terrain of the landscape. I always create
the basic concept of the paintings directly in the place I paint, it has become
a ritual for me without which I cannot imagine the creative process. I use the
watercolor technique and drawing on paper in the open air. In the studio I work
with acrylic and oil on canvas.
The discomfort of the landscape brings naturalness,
sincerity, authenticity and unadorned reality to my creations. For me, being a
landscape painter means building a relationship with nature and the
environment, it's how I live with nature. When I am in the landscape, I have a
dialogue with it.
I am currently working on two projects. The first is focused
on Slovakian caves, which are under the protection of UNESCO, and in the second
I am devoted to the depiction of the Lužné lesy protected area, which is
located in the Danube river basin in my hometown. My path to painting developed
in a very complicated way, from abstraction to reality. I live and work in
Slovakia.
