George Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue, Circa 2019

Jozef Svikruha  

Artist and art teacher Jozef Svikruha is a native of Trebichava near Banovce nad Bebravou - a small town in Slovakia. After graduation, he studied in the years 1960-1964 at the Pedagogical Institute in Nitra in the painting studio of doc. Ľudovít Jelenák and doc. Olga Félixová. After his studies, he spent his entire professional life as a teacher in primary schools and for 25 years in the Primary Art School in Trenčín.

He cooperated externally and still cooperates with the Trenčín Educational Center in the section of non-professional art and children's art as a methodologist and jury member. He is the bearer of the departmental award of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic, the Great Medal of St. Gorazda and POCTA awards from the National Enlightenment Center.

He presented his works at home and abroad - in the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Serbia and Slovenia. Is a member of the oldest Slovak art association Umelecká beseda slovenska. He lives and works in Trenčín.

He finds inspiration in his work primarily in the Slovak countryside. Looking at his paintings of winter or autumn landscapes, we can smell the first snow falling on yellowed grass and orange leaves. An experience we have almost forgotten. The smell of the country really came to life.

In the last three years, the author moves from the genre of landscape painting and enters the world of classical music. The inspiration is revealed by the names of the paintings - the most famous works of European classics, for example Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonio Vivaldi and others. Their choice is purely subjective, according to feelings, mood and experience. The pure essence of color flows on his canvases like Tchaikovsky's music through the ether, but it is not an illustration of a piece of music. Dominant verticals or citations of details of musical instruments determine the rhythm, but the basis is the color, with which the musically sensitive painter transforms tonality, dynamics, and melody sometimes into contrasting, and sometimes into complementary color compositions.