We are opening doors for young and talented artists!
This competition aims to support creativity and art among young creators
eager to present their work to the world.
(*1988) studied painting and fine arts from 2008 to 2014 in the Studio of Classical Painting Disciplines under Professor Ľudovít Hološka at the Academy of Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts in Banská Bystrica. He dedicates himself exclusively to painting and drawing, focusing on the analysis of depicting figures, landscapes, and architectural spaces. In his work, he explores the interplay of form in alignment with his own internal research on the meaning of existence. The result of his efforts is a series of paintings that convey authentic stories of lived moments. The artist often repaints and layers his works, constantly seeking new possibilities without respect for rules, limits, or attachments. For him, the goal is not to create a perfect image; the goal is to relish the present moment in the process of transforming visual reality into a structural composition.
(*1991) completed her painting studies in 2016 in the studio of Professor Daniel Fischer at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, during which she also completed an internship in the glass studio and international residencies in the USA and Portugal. In 2022, she defended her dissertation under Associate Professor Emöke Vargová in the Drawing Department at the Academy, where she has since been working as an adjunct instructor. Her works have been showcased in numerous group and solo exhibitions not only in Slovakia but also in the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Russia, the USA, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, France, and Portugal. She has received multiple awards, including the Rector’s Award and the Slovak Art Union Award in 2016. A year later, she won the VUB Painting of the Year award, and in 2018 and 2023, she received the NOVUM Foundation Prize. Her works are part of collections at the Slovak National Gallery (2019) and MussVerre, Sars-Poteries, France (2017). Currently, she lives and creates in Bratislava. Žofia is a painter who, in her artistic research, transcends the boundaries of painting not only formally but through intensive exploration of the limits of the pictorial surface and the physical properties of painting on canvas. From her initial experiments with the composition and re-stretching of painted canvas, she has evolved toward spatial installations. It could be said that Žofia paints what she lives. Her relationship with nature is expressed not only through long hikes and mountain climbs but also in her attempts to tame waves or in her fascination with avalanches during winter skiing expeditions in the mountains. In Žofia’s painting, what is important is not only the height she achieves but also the depth she delves into in her research; her work consistently carries a strong philosophical context.
(*1991) The artist is a visual artist who focuses in her work on spatial experimentation with the essences of color and shape. She uses geometric spatial objects in the form of both regular and irregular polyhedrons and complex structures. Her works create parallel environments filled with floating objects that evoke the worlds of both micro and macro space. Through these images, the artist explores an emotional landscape of an abstract mental map and a cosmos, generated by her painterly imagination. Her work serves as a metaphor for inner experience, embodying human psychology within an associative, abstract landscape.
Kristína Kandriková works with painting on an essential level. The diverse approaches she employs in her work all lead in one direction—toward freeing herself from all distractions and reaching a state of pure being. She strives to use this ideal state of a 'clear mind' during her process and to convey it to the viewers so that they, too, can experience and feel it. Her current work experiments with the light spectrum, music, dance, and literature. The artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava and completed an internship at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. She exhibits her work in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
(*1996) is a Slovak geometric painter and a representative of the youngest generation ofSlovak painting. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where hewas guided by Professor Ivan Csudai in the 4th Painting Studio. During his studies, heexplored various visual approaches until his work ultimately settled into the realm ofatypical geometric abstraction, reflecting the current digital age. Kučera draws inspirationfrom the digital environment, which he sees as an inseparable part of our existence. Thisinfluence is evident in his works, characterized by bold color gradients, complexcompositions, and optical illusions. His art goes beyond traditional canvas formats; heexperiments with irregular shapes and convex surfaces, enhancing the perception of spaceand dynamics. Kučera’s works represent a synthesis of color, shape, and movement, witheach element contributing to the overall impression. Through the use of digitaltechnologies, he transforms traditional painting into contemporary aesthetic forms,pushing the boundaries of geometric abstraction. His work thus becomes a bridge betweenthe physical and digital worlds, resonating with current themes and challenges of our time.
I was born in 1992 in Bratislava. I studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design inBratislava. In 2019, I received the VUB Foundation Painting of the Year award. Through quietartistic reflection, I strive to visually capture the diversity and fragility of landscapes, as wellas the transformations of nature. I work in carefully planned painting cycles, which allowme to artistically develop my chosen themes in a comprehensive way. My work is based onresearch and observation in the field, as well as painting in the studio and en plein air. Ihave completed several international artist residencies, during which I had the opportunityto explore natural biodiversity in different parts of the world. I have painted trees in theheart of Blue Mountains and Wollemi National Parks in Australia, as well as river flowers innorthern India. I have had the opportunity to present my paintings in several soloexhibitions on various continents.
(*1993, Trnava) completed her studies in 2019 in the 4th Studio at the Academy of Fine Artsand Design in Bratislava. Petržalová primarily focuses on figurative painting. She isinterested in the mystique of the banal everyday—the enduring conflict between theordinary and the unique. At the core of her work is almost always the human figure,exploring its essence and physicality. She paints without internal limitations and with anexpressive energy, conveying a sense of humanity in unknown heroes and heroines who,through social media, appear as fantastical and unreal as direct contact with them. Shehas held solo exhibitions in Slovak galleries, including ATELIER XVIII (2020), Ján KoniarekGallery (2021), DOT. Contemporary Art Gallery (2022), Blu : gallery (2023), and participatedin group projects at Gloria’s Gallery (New York), Galerie Kritiků (Prague), the Slovak Institutein Jerusalem, and Berlin. Her works have been showcased at the Artissima Fair (Turin) andMiart Milan (Milan). In 2019, she was a finalist in the VUB Painting of the Year competition,and in 2022, she was long-listed for the STRABAG Artaward. She lives and creates in Trnava.
(*1989) observes what it means to be human, to live this essential experience as part of theworld. He uncovers ancestral memories, recalls, and discovers what defines a person,what transcends them, and where a person finds their home. In his series of paintings titledThe Long Journey Home, Sabol balances between symbolism and geometric abstraction,between the lightness of poetic meaning and the structural diction of form. He draws onthe visuality of the contemporary post-digital era, enriching it with handmade painting thatemphasizes authenticity, materiality, and physical presence. He paints layer upon layer,breathing soul into each piece. Color is rock, color is dust, color is nebula, color is cloud,color is a dancing beam of light yearning to be seen and reveal the shape of things.Sabol considers artistic expression as a way to cultivate humanity, one’s environment, andthereby the world as a whole. His primary medium is painting, though his work spansvarious forms—from canvas paintings and large-scale murals in public spaces to site-specific installations. He has held numerous solo and group exhibitions both at home andabroad, including in Germany, Belgium, and Bulgaria. Additionally, he has completed several mural projects, both domestically and internationally, such as in Belgium and Israel.
Denisa Slavkovská is a painter who does not hesitate to incorporate other media into herwork, such as printmaking, ceramics, installation, and performance. She completed hermaster’s degree in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, where she gained extensive practical and theoretical skills through various internships across different departments. Her central themes include subjective experience, perception through the body, spatial memory, movement, and routine. These themes alternate in herwork and occasionally merge within certain series. As an actively exhibiting artist, she has participated in multiple group and solo exhibitions, including in Berlin, Kyiv, Budapest,Vienna, Ústí nad Labem, and Zamość. In 2022 and 2023, she was long-listed for theStrabag Artaward International, and she is currently a finalist for the VUB Painting of the Year award.
She graduated from the Open Painting Studio, led by Associate Professor Rastislav Podoba,ArtD., at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica. She is currentlya doctoral student under Professor Jiří David at the same faculty. She has participated inseveral workshops in Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary, and in 2020 she completed aresidency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in France. She has exhibited widely, both insolo and group shows, in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, and France. In2020, she was the laureate of the Painting of the Year competition and received the Dean’sAward for the best bachelor’s thesis, extracurricular activities, and representation of thefaculty. In 2021, she impressed the jury in the Strabag Artaward International competition,reaching the finals and receiving an Honorable Mention. Since 2019, she has been the author and organizer of the discussion format Rozhovory(“Conversations”), originally created for the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Academy in Banská Bystrica. In her work, Natália Šimonová explores themes of collective and personalmemory, often depicting motifs of urban architecture and its structures, such as playgrounds from the socialist era. Currently, she is working on themes related to collective and personal memory, addressing these through visually strong, familiar motifs of urbanarchitecture and its forms. She subjects everything to the concept of decay, representingthis through traditional and non-traditional painting materials, such as rust, which is processual and transformative. She is also studying other organic materials, like mold. Inaddition to the gradual evolution of her motifs, she is increasingly interested in thearchitecture of exhibitions themselves, leading to a tendency in her work to extend from the flat wall surface into the physical space. She lives and creates in Prašice, near Topoľčany.
(*1991, Rožňava) studied graphic art in the Studio of Free and Colorful Graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. She works with color serigraphy, painting, drawing, collage, and digital illustration. Her signature style includes overlapping elements, linearity, and an unfinished quality, combined with a clear color palette. She portrays emotional landscapes, which she abstracts and combines with figurative elements. Her works often blur the boundaries between dream and reality. She has presented her work solo at the Gallery of the Mining Museum in Rožňava and in Foajé in Bratislava. She has also participated in group exhibitions in Ružomberok, Piešťany, Senica, Liptovský Mikuláš, Bratislava, Rožňava, Budapest, Brno, Tokushima, and Kielce.
Mgr. Andrej Bíla studied art education at Trnava University. His work is most visible in public spaces, particularly through murals created during various graffiti and street art events. Along with other invited artists, he participated in painting the city hashtag 'Trnava 2024.' In 2022, he exhibited at the Výklad Gallery, where he presented his work in a solo exhibition titled Social Proof. He also gained public attention in 2020 when he designed the graphic cover for the winter issue of Nádvorie Magazine and illustrated several articles in a light-hearted style. Collaboration with the Slovak brand Chill Skateboards is also essential to Bíla; from 2019 to 2024, he designed a series of skateboard deck graphics for them. As both an artist and skateboarder, this allowed him to directly connect with his community.
(*1992) Jozef Pilát’s work spans two distinct worlds. One foot stands firmly in the fertile soil of his rural homeland, connected to cultural and family traditions intertwined with the endless cycles of nature and agriculture. The other foot, however, steps into the dynamic world of cities. This duality is reflected in his choice of expressive tools, which oscillate between the artistic values of painting—its objectivity, structure, and craftsmanship—and the use of modern installation strategies and technologies, such as drones, video, and computer graphics. Pilát’s creative thinking is inseparably linked to the continuous overlap of these two realities. An important aspect of his work is the concept of art in public space, sometimes paradoxically set not in urban environments but, for example, in the fields of his native village. The morphology of wild plants and weeds, as well as the timeless human interaction with the landscape, form the foundation of many of his narratives. Through the symbolism of objects and processes, these stories play a crucial role in the articulation of his works.
Born on March 12, 1994, in Trnava, Zuzana Martinusová is a graduate of the Textile Creation Department at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. During her studies, she focused more on graphic design and illustration than on textiles, later integrating these media into unique patterns on textile materials through digital printing. In 2021, she was nominated for the National Design Award in the student category and has participated in various group exhibitions both in Slovakia and abroad. Her work is characterized by structured surfaces, pastel work, and melancholic dreamlike landscapes. Her current work primarily focuses on themes of transformation, growth, and the passage of time, drawing inspiration from nature, where she seeks the poetic quality of the cyclical process of life, death, and rebirth.
Don't miss this unique opportunity to showcase your artwork and secure a prestigious commission for our luxury residence! We look forward to your submissions and creative works.