Jana Machatová: Lost in Memories

Where:

• RONA Gallery

  • the grounds of the mansion in Lednické Rovne, Schreiberova 365, 020 61 Lednické Rovne

When:

• opening: April 17, 2024 at 5 p.m.

• duration:

  • April 17 – June 9, 2024

Curator:

• Naďa Kančevová

Jewelry as a trace of personal and collective memory

The presented jewelry collection of Jana Machatová was created during her three-year doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design Bratislava (studio S+M+L_XL – Metal and jewelry, Prof. Karol Weisslechner, 2024). The resulting dissertation entitled Jewelry as a trace of personal and collective memory is also the result of the author's long-term artistic program dealing with the concept of object/jewelry memory. Learning from the current "archival turn" helped her to go beyond the conventional view of jewelry as a decorative or functional object in favor of understanding it as a medium with its own value, meaning and message. A metaphor at the same time, the use of jewelry as a palimsest stimulated her to explore its meaning and historical ("memory") layers - starting with its material essence, through various individual memorial functions, to jewelry in the sense of an engaged means of communication, a memento or mediator of more serious social contents and political topics.

From a formal point of view, the presented jewelry is characterized by craftsmanship and shape refinement, attention to detail and a special combination of shapes and materials. Machatová, as a member of the middle "Husák generation", is especially inclined towards various disappearing fragments from the socialist period (old prints, old family and anonymous photographs and other small objects), which she modifies with jewelery techniques in order to highlight their aesthetic or conceptual values. The used found fragments simultaneously serve as a reminder, a mnemonic aid, an incomplete trace of processes and events that require a certain narrative to be completed.

The exhibited collection as a whole is an obvious result of concentrated artistic research, combining theoretical knowledge, practical experience and reflective thinking. With it, the author opens a dialogue about the ways of presentation, representation (and manipulation) of memory and suggests that contemporary author's jewelry has the potential to be a unique artistic and memory stimulus, influencing and enriching the thinking and social attitudes of the viewer or the wearer.

Nada Kancevová, April 2024