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On abstract art very specifically
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These patterns of mine are like Picasso.
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And Monet, whom I'm trying out.
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And these techniques of theirs are
very, very complex in terms of oil.
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And to paint with oil is very complicated.
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But I'm trying.
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And I just see these scenes and I paint them.
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That's the whole thing, I can't
describe it very well.
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If I could, I could keep painting them all the time.
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Because I have that feeling and I can
see it, so I guess I'm lucky to see it.
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It's very strange to render that
interplay of geometric shapes.
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And the matching of the colors to the paintings.
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It's quite complicated, but I like it.
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I don't like too simple paintings.
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Or rather, I would say not simple,
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but so colourful and so strange
in something that
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the interplay of geometric shapes
can be matched with colours.
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These paintings that I paint are
a certain stage of a life in me.
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But for example, I take such inspirations
when I walk around the city.
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And when I see a person or a girl, a woman, a lady,
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it gets me started in the atelier.
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And I try either sculptures or paintings.
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And this particular painting
A Lady is exactly from our town,
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where I saw such a pretty girl
and she was just dancing to herself.
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Maybe she was in a good mood
and she was wearing those headphones.
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So I remembered her and I made this picture.
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It's an abstract art.
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It's acrylic combined with oil,
it means a sense of calm to me.
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Somewhere some vision of something, just a rest.
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Every person sees something different in it,
a hundred people has a hundred tastes, of course
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Everybody has to see something in it
or have a feeling while doing it.
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This one is called The Lucky.
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And it's also my period, where I have
a friend who has great big eyes.
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And so I wanted to commemorate him somehow.
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I laugh a lot with him when we
get together as friends.
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So I created him.
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It's a combination of abstract
art, it's acrylic, oil.
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And these scenes from what I can see,
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they're actually geometric shapes.
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And somebody said at an exhibition I don't
remember where, that they're hieroglyphics.
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So it's my scribbled things
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that give the image a character.
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And just I like these colours.
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Green, red, blue, like the symbol of our flag.
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That's why I mostly use those colours
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in my paintings and I combine them.
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To make it so distinctive, that it
was really done by Roma,
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who really tried to combine
these features of the flag.
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There has to be a feeling in all art.
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And since I often paint an abstract art,
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so maybe these are the kind of
scenes or feelings that I have.
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And in that second or in that
time when you're painting it,
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you have to render it on that
painting the way you feel it.
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That's the whole experience of abstract art.
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Because in that moment only
you can see it, the painting.
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Nobody else, only you in your perception
of how you are doing it.
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How you see it and how
you transfer it to the canvas.
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That is, the image is never the same.
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In abstract art it will always be different.
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The style will be there, but
it will never be the same.
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The red is our symbol.
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As you know, we have red, green
and blue, I mean our Roma flag.
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And it actually shows in my paintings.
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I mostly use blue, red, green.
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The symbol of our flag.
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I can't paint on tiny canvases.
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And when I paint them, I usually paint with oil.
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They're more like Monet strokes,
where I'm still learning.
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And these abstract things on big canvases
are very, very interesting to me.
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I mean, I like these big canvases,
the bigger the better.
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The Goat
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Its full name is The Crooked Goat .
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And for the one reason.
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When we were in school, up to about
the 6th grade, we had a teacher
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who would call us, boys and girls alike,
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in general terms, the crooked goat,
no matter if it was a boy or a girl.
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And once I asked him:- Mr. Teacher,
shouldn't I be a billy goat?
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So he said to me:- No, you are all crooked goats.
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So I made such a remembrance of him.
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And from that came this popular statue
The Crooked Goat.
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It's such a memory, I would say.
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It's made in our smelter in Považská Bystrica.
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Where MEDEKO ART is, where I have my website,
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through which about 60 pieces have already
been sold around the world, so it's very popular.
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Basically, it's such a process that
you always have to think of something.
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Like in music, in business, in
anything, that includes me.
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I was driven to do it by the memory of my teacher.
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The product is that you make
an original out of sculptural clay.
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And you take it to the factory, where it's
further refined and cast in bronze.
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So it's not easy, but the result is nice.
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All the sculptures I have
are cast in Považská Bystrica.
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Or at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava.
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That's also a technique of mine
that I basically invented.
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But the thing is that with the art,
when I do it or with my sculptures,
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I have my technique where on the sculpture
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a skeleton out of wire is made,
which I then cover with sculptural clay.
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It is called OR.
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I'm already automatically going
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after pieces of wire and eventually
this will all come into being.
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It's also about feelings, both in
the paintings and in the sculpture.
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They are interested, and that's why
they ask me about this shoe.
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I, when I was a kid, I had one pair of shoes for 4 years.
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So I gave them to him, and it's on
almost every one of my statues.
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The power of a woman
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This is The power of a woman.
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It's in my conception, I conceived it
in a more abstract way.
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But I can also model more
beautiful statues that are original.
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But this is my expression of abstraction
that fits those paintings.
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All these statuettes that I have, or mostly
I try to, but they are few.
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Because it's a very expensive casting process.
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But of these sculptures I have already sold
four or five, I don't know exactly.
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But these are considerably singed.
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And it's all bronze.
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This one was cast for me at
the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava.
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I wake up as an artist.
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Something happened to me at 19,
when I was about to go to the military service.
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I was rammed by a drunken policemen.
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And I fell into a coma for three months.
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I lost my memory, and somehow I came out of it.
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And that's when the story begins,...
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It's hard to describe, because at
that time, still in communism,
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after that car accident, a movie
started to appear
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in front of my head that I can zoom in on.
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Zoom in, fast forward.
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And the pictures that I paint now are
the scenes that I see after the car crash.
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When teachers from when I was
a kid come to my openings,
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they ask how it's possible that I was
able to paint something like that.
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I'm painting or I´m creating.
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When I was a kid, my classmates were
painting my homework for me,
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to get at least a C or a D, because
I didn't know how to paint at all.
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It was three months, but it was
a very short time for me.
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And it wasn't dark at all, the way it's written
or the way somebody describes it.
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I was accompanied by someone,
I just couldn't see his face.
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But I felt him and he was
showing me beautiful things.
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The colours and the brushstrokes.
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And things I don't understand myself,
but that's just the way it is.
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After that accident, I went to the military,
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where I met a friend who was a plasterer.
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And he taught me a few moves with some sculptures.
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Sculpting out of sculpting clay,
and so I learned something.
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One day I sat down in my garage.
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I took a canvas, I don't know for what reason.
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But I started making sculptures too,
it just started filling me up.
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So I went for it 100%.
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It started basically in that garage,
where our director noticed me.
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He's an entrepreneur at MEDECO CASt Ltd.,
where they cast statues in bronze.
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And when he saw what I was creating, he offered
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to pay for my first exhibition and to give it a try.
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So I made about twenty sculptures.
150
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Then the people from the Museum from
Brno came, I didn't expect such a success.
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And they bought all the sculptures.
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Far from Slovakia I exhibited in Ottawa, Canada.
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It was an invitation from the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, which I was surprised myself
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that so many paintings and statues
were going to Canada.
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So I was very surprised
that I received such an offer.
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It was nice there because
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there were so many people and Slovaks
who came to see the Slovak.
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There was also Canadian TV there,
so they interviewed me.
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And they bought about eight paintings
there, so it was a success.
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And I think it was an encouragement
for the future openings.
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It was on a good level because
it was at the embassy in Ottawa.
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The ambassador was very nice, and
the organizers around him as well.
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At the end, they invited a Roma
band as a surprise for me.
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Well no, it wasn't a gypsy band!
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They sang and played Roma songs.
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A word in conclusion.
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To our Roma, but also to
the non-Roma, to never give up.
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When they start something,
they should always finish it.
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Have a dream in front of you and keep pushing it.
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Until it comes true.
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You never know how and what
will change at that moment.
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That dream.
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So this award for our Roma
people from the organization
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is also in the notion that you have to dream.
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And that dream will come true
one day, even if it is difficult.
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But I believe that the person who dreams, lives.