About my work available here : https://www.instagram.com/jaovecka/
In my work, I primarily focus on figurative painting - the human body and also depicting nudity as part of it. In the beginning, I expressed my interest in nudity in simple compositions, without an obvious analysis of the reasons that led me to painting naked women. Everything consisted of an animality that my eyes had not seen before. I was not familiar with authors like Jenny Saville, Emma Hopkins or Lucian Freud. Only after looking at their works did I try to think more about the reason for my fascination or to some extent imitate them in my own image.
I basically became a voyeur. When I lived in the dormitory, I observed the naked bodies of my neighbors in shared showers, watched adult sites and later created my own paintings, in which I represented and completed what I had seen in the past. I enjoyed, especially through drawings, shamelessly placing naked women in unexpected environments, I opened my creative boundaries by using other media, such as sprays, adhesive glitter or dry pastel. For me, being a student of the Painting Studio 2 represented a shift, especially in the area of thinking about my work. During the first semester, I chose the topic of voyeurism. I tried to get to know it better, its environment in which it occurs, the behavior it abounds in, or the possibilities it can synthesize. The result of this effort was a triptych called Voyeur. In it, I created a tangle of hints through the play with the views of the characters and the observer.
I spent the next semester at the University of Technology with a deeper perception of myself, of my anchoring in a society full of strange ghosts. In the same way as in ancient Greece and Rome bereaved parents put their tears in a glass container (fr. un lacrymatoire), I also put my sorrows in a sketchbook. The infamous tear gas (en. lachrymator) bears a similar name to the aforementioned container. It has long been held by soldiers during the First World War, or nowadays by the police when dispersing riots or demonstrations. So I, too, clutched the fabric binding of the sketchbook in my hands to draw the restlessness from my body. The final work of this semester resulted in a two-meter-sized painting called Lacrimatórium. It serves as the embodiment of a lacrimator, excluding its original meaning, which is transformed into a so-called lacrimatorium. The shape of the word lacrimatorium may remind the reader of words such as crematorium or mausoleum, which also have certain similarities in terms of meaning. The painting deals with topics on several levels. One of them is a possible depiction of a lacrimator, another is personal static in life, the identity of a woman, especially a Slovak woman (inspiration in the Slovak Radio building).
In the last, third semester, I continued in both directions from the previous period. The difference, however, is a more personal approach to creation. With my previous studies (before joining FaVU), I graduated from fields that, together with being raised by a soldier and a teacher, "sculpted" me into more of an academic than an artist. Over the course of the semester, I gradually came to understand more about the playfulness of the shapes of the female body, its possibilities for reshaping or finishing it. The images that I presented to the cloisters consisted primarily of puns, which are my frequent source of inspiration. The first painting is called The Best Woman - laid / half woman. In it, a giantess woman is presented, who is planted in the mountains with her huge body and, I guess, fits into them with her grandiosity. The second painting is called Mother's Yoga, and its subject perhaps does not even need to be explained. They are mothers who jumped to yoga.
In the following work, I would like to address a different topic, which is nostalgia. In it, using memories or my own old photos, I will create a series of images that will try to evoke a feeling of nostalgia in the observer. Nostalgia, as a frequent phenomenon, creates a connection in time at the level of increased acceptance and supports belonging. Naturally, persons such as family members, close friends or partners form the imaginary basis for an individual's nostalgic memories. However, in my opinion, the fact to what extent it is possible to perceive common nostalgia remains interesting. This is because it is significantly correlated with relational collectivism, which unites not only small groups of people who really shared the given nostalgic idea, but also a larger collective, larger social groups. The observers themselves will become a diverse group in which, despite their different age categories, gender, or education level, indications related to nostalgia will manifest themselves.
