Katarína Maceňková

I come from Eastern Slovakia, from a small town called Strážske. Currently I live and study in Brno. I completed studies for a bachelor’s degree in painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Banská Bystrica in the studio of Professor Stanislav Balko and later Ján Triaško. I took advantage of the Erasmus+ programme, when I had a chance to spend the whole semester at the Akadémia Sztuk Pieknych in Warsaw under tutorship of Professor Wojciech Zubala. During my study for a master’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology in the Painting 1 studio led by Vasil Artamonov, I concurrently finished an Expressive Therapy course focusing on art therapy at Masaryk University in Brno. I primarily work in the medium of painting where I have presently fixed myself on the exploration of oil painting. It provides me with a host of so far unknown opportunities both in terms of the technical and chemical aspects.

contact: [email protected]

The Change

Medium: oil painting on canvas

In series: Death Triangle, Death Triangle 2, Death Triangle 3, Logo, Logo 2, Logo 3, Chimney, Gate, Gate 2, Behind the Fence, Zemplínska šírava, Map

In the work called THE CHANGE I return in memories to my homeland, the small town where I used to live and where I spent most of my life. This period has had a profound influence on my being. In the first phase of the time axis of creating the theme of the diploma work, in my returns through induction and deduction, I come close to the illness of my father, which is not rare within the territory of my homeland. I collect the clues that lead me to finding the causes of the contraction and occurrence. Then I bring back memories related to listening to people’s stories about the factory, which was to have been and probably was the provider of livelihood for the inhabitants of the poor east of Slovakia, including by production of PCB substances. I create, put together and depict images hidden as memories experienced at the time of my childhood. I paint Chemko Strážske, the factory that in those days was an illusion of a happy life. I illustrate the whole region called the Death Triangle, which gives work to people and livelihood to families in the surroundings. A region where I used to live well for a long time and did not miss anything. The Death Triangle. A territory in Eastern Slovakia in the Zemplín region dating back to the period of the mid-1950s until today. The company, Chemko Strážske, together with other chemical plants in the towns of Vranov nad Topľou and Humenné, formed an imaginary triangle on the geographical map. The environmental consequences of the production of these companies affected the whole extensive area of the imaginary triangle. An area where people “contracted” and inherit diagnoses connected with carcinogens. I look for a way of accepting and becoming reconciled with the aid of a painterly technique, through depicting symbols, central signs, which represent it all.

#triangleofdeath #chemko #strážske #pcb