MARIA’S VISION

“For me, art is something that I do not own, it is something that I let live and share with love. I would like my artworks to be seen by as many people as possible, so that the message the art carries within is heard by each one of them. Every painting is a glimpse of a story for people to tell themselves.”

Contemporary artwork can sometimes be complicated and difficult to connect with. Maria wants to offer people who encounter her art the possibility of feeling a personal connection with it. Maria doesn’t want her artwork to be exclusive, she wants people from all walks of life to be able to have a piece of art which is precious to them.

The use of vibrant colours in Maria’s art helps to add joy to the complexity of everyday life.

MARIA’S STORY

At the age of 5, Maria announced to her mother that she was going to be an artist. She had a huge imagination and a head full of pictures. She began taking classes in general art techniques and eventually was able to bring those pictures to life.

She has never stopped giving life to her ideas and is constantly introducing the world to her colorful and captivating universe of characters. Her work has been recognized and shown in a wide variety of exhibitions all over the world.

BRATISLAVA

Maria’s first solo show was in 1993, in the Rock Fabrik Danubius club in Bratislava. This was followed by an extensive number of both solo and group shows worldwide.

AMSTERDAM

Maria established her first art studio in Amsterdam, Netherlands. This lead to an active involvement in the local art and music scene over several years. The alternative lifestyles and cultures she was part of there led to the birth of her creatures from the Land of Garlandyolks and the creation of the universe around them. And while there, over the mid 90s, she also created a large number of hand drawn event flyers for cultural PH31.

EASTERN TOWNSHIPS AND NEW YORK CITY

In 1998, she travelled to the Eastern townships of Quebec, Canada and this was followed by spending time in NYC, USA. There, her artwork was shown in the Small Works Competition at Washington Square Galleries and was followed by two solo shows.

AUSTRIA

In 2003 she spent several months in Graz, Austria, where she did a residency at Hotel Rhizom gallery and established GerdaDear, a short lived, but very active hotel band. Together with Daan Botlek and Lennard Schuurmans, she painted a large mural on Forum Stadpark’s side wall. Her work was selected to be shown at Quartier 21 at Museums Quartier in Vienna in 2 group shows presented by Graz based artists.

UNITED KINGDOM

Year 1992. After a short spell in London, Maria have spent some time in Bristol, UK, where she became a contributing artist at Pop God record label for the bands Moonflowers, Praise Space Electric and Me. After Maria’s return to UK and establishing her new studio in Harrogate, she got invited to create artwork for the group show We are Pop at the John Mackie Gallery, also in Harrogate. As a member of international art group Mind-wrestlers, her work was shown in galleries in both Europe (Parsons College Gallery, Paris) and USA (Arc Gallery, Chicago). Her journey continued in London, UK, where she based her studio in Tottenham. In the following 8 years Maria actively exhibited in a number of East and South London venues (Patricks Harvist, Cultivate Gallery, Stone Space, Rhythm Factory…)

Maria has performed at numerous events and venues around London and recordings of her poetry have been broadcast on radio shows on BBC, Radio FM (Slovak national radio) and Milton Keynes Community Radio among others. She also released a mini album titled Speaking of Words in 2011.

That same year, in collaboration with Strange Flavour, Maria developed an iOS game called MelvinTiles featuring her artwork. During the last 8 years that she spent in the UK, she was repeatedly invited to Latitude Festival, Suffolk, to create an installation (Faraway Tree installation-2009), for live painting (Lavish live art-2011) and to present her performance poetry with Greg Hall on cello and Franz Kirmann on electronics (In the Woods Stage-2012).

OTHER KEY APPEARANCES

- With the annual presence at Pohoda festival, Trencin, Slovakia, starting in 2006, she created art works consisting of large scale murals, plywood sculptures and surface art painted live during the festival.

- Malostranska Beseda, Prague, Czech republic with SUK (Slovak union of caricaturists)

- Famous When Dead Gallery, Melbourne, Australia

- Fountain Gallery, NYC, USA

- Street Art Tour Festival, Indonesia

- Hura! Divadlo Bolka Polivky, Brno, Czech Republic

- You are beautiful. Chicago, USA

- Her children’s book illustration debut was Na vylete do vesmiru written by Brano Jobus published by Pohoda Agency in 2005

- As an illustrator, she continues to create an annual Poviedka (short story slovak language competition) book covers since 2011 to present date, published by KK Bagala

For the full list of exhibitions and other art related activities, please visit here

In 2016 Maria relocated from London to a more peaceful, rural setting and currently runs Peace&Cookies, an art and design studio located in the village of Alet les Bains in south-western France.

PRESS