JANA MACHATOVA

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BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1972 in Hnusta, Jana Machatova lives and works in Stupava, Slovakia. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts in Kremnica in 1990, she continued her studies under Professor Anton Cepka at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, from which she graduated in 1997.

Since 1992, she regularly participates in international exhibitions and her works are part of private and public collections (Slovak National Gallery (Bratislava), Hejral Collection Smržovka (Czech Republic).


"Jana Machatova is one of the first Slovak fine artists who completed her study of jewelry at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (under Cepka and Weisslechner). During her time there, she underwent a geometrizing and kinetic episode under Cepka’s influence; however, she soon shifted her attention to the theme of memory. She works on this theme in mutually interconnected layers – through her own story, touched up by retrospective optimism and through commentaries, which provide a bitter (or) realistic crown on sweet childhood times. Thus, the accent on personal, family or fantasy memory traces developed in the form of medallions in laminated photography or in carved silver sheets alternates by tuning in to a wider context. In her jewelry, Socialist Czechoslovakia marches with various attributes – badges of children’s pioneer organizations, prefabricated housing developments, barbed wire. Party leaders kissing, Spartakiad games, happy workers and merry children are a more telling description of the socialist era – in the sense of the artist’s sentimental-ironic poetics, they are frequently accompanied by a luxurious golden background and bucolic blueprint motifs. Another layer, to which she revisits with intermissions, is connected to the narrative provided by old postcards and newspapers, in her latest series focusing on, but not exclusively, the history of women’s crafts." -- Viera Kleinova, 2019