I graduated from AFAD in Bratislava, Slovakia in 2018. I work primarily with the media of ceramics, drawing and painting. Theoretically I am concerned with the problematics of gender equality, searching for one’s own identity, gender stereotypes and prejudices of Eastern Europe, “masculine” and “feminine” nature of people, things and activities, expectations of dominance and submission. My work connects these contrasts and analyzes pressure, seething, tension, ambiguity, and subsequent liberation of the object, its narrativity and its archetypal nature. The theoretical dimension of my work builds upon the practical one, and by means of ironizing these historical, biological and social interconnections, it reflects my own personal experience with them.
I believe that a vase doesn’t have to be decorated with flowers and abstract patterns only, I believe that through a committed painting qua mode of decoration of utility objects I can mediate important and positive messages, reflect reality and contemporary situation, and also emphasize the potential of applied art and ceramics as an opinion-shaping medium in the formation of society’s democratic values. As an artist, I am deeply concerned with this problematic because it asks why decorate vases with flowers, why obey the ideal of beauty in applied art, why surrender the ability to reflect everyday reality with its social and political tensions. Concerning the morphology of the vase itself, I choose a basic, simple and functional shape, for I believe that all possible shapes of vases have already been made, and to look for a new one would be a pointless and uninteresting endeavor for me. I choose the vase not on the basis of its immediate function, but on the basis of its symbolism which it represents in our context. I perceive the vase as an archetype, an object in our households and living rooms immediately tied to the feelings of home.
However, it is also a metaphor for the stereotypical view of women as homemakers, vain decorators and housewives. The morphology and the choice of material, and above all the ceramic medium itself, is an indirect representation of the stereotypes about femininity and masculinity, about female and male art and design; the rational and pure shape is ascribed to the man’s activity in contrast with the emotional, intuitive, natural, gentle and irrational activity of women being represented by the surface decoration of the object. The object reflects these tendencies, established ideas and practices, being their irrational and ironic mock. Yet it doesn’t lose its utility function and is therefore easily applicable to those households that function in the spirit of the above-mentioned values. My work hinges on the social and gender prejudices in the countries of Eastern Europe and depicts the influence of this environment and way of thinking on my art. It reflects my impressions of society, people, personal identity, popular culture, social constructs, naming of the acceptable and unacceptable, good and bad.
Zuzana Svatik was born in Slovakia, 1993. She completed her master’s degree at the Ceramics Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in 2018, she specializes in applied art and works mainly in the medium of ceramics. In 2016 she won the Collection of the Year award at BADW with her collection. In 2018, with her work within the Miksmitte project, she won the BADW main prize and became the faces of BADW 2019. In 2020 she presented her work at the exhibition 1000 Vases in Paris, as part of the curated Arthouse Designblok Prague, at the KHG in Berlin and at BADW 2020.
More art works: http://www.yicollecta.com/en/collections/53
Photos ©️ Lot Brandt ＆ YIART
