Artist name: Ján Zelinka
Dates of residency: March-April
Born: 1978
Hometown: Vranov, Slovakia
Lives and works: Prešov, Slovakia
URL: www.janzelinka.com
Education: 2002-2006, BFA Technical University in Košice, Faculty of Arts
Ad MFA Technical University in Košice, Faculty of Arts; since 2012. Postgraduate courses, Academy of fine arts and design. Bratislava
BIO/ STATEMENT:
Ján Zelinka is a an artist whose sculptural and drawing practice is characterized by the use of unusual materials with peat, ash, rotting fruit, blood or concrete among others. One of his early sculptures DOLLY http://janzelinka.com/EN/galeria.php?id=31 is in stiffened peat. Overarching themes question the status of the human being within the natural hierarchy of life and death and their relation to the othe. With the series “I AM LOOKING FOR THE SUBSTANCE“ His animalistic works made in clay plastic depict an ephemeral being losing its natural corporality and floating in space.
Another thematic is Zelinka’s fascination with death. In POST-MORTEM CONSCIOUSNESS the artist depicts the drastic moment of death, petrified in lead, when brain consciousness is removed from the body yet still present.
Ján Zelinka has exhibited at the Kunsthale, Košice (“Reform”, 2014) in Slovakia, and in 2015 in the group exhibition “Slovak art days in London” at the Gallery on the Corner, London,and at Cena Osraka Čepana in Slovakia.
SUPPORT: Ján Zelinka’s 2-month residency is made possible with funds from Foundation for a Civil Society/The Trust for Mutual Understanding.
