(* 1992, Trnava)

2016 – 2022, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (VŠVU) in the Department of Painting, in Doc. K. Kosziba’s Studio mal+by; 2012 – 2015, she also graduated in audiovisual studies at FTF, Academy of Performing Arts. In parallel, in 2014 – 2015, she completed a study stay at FAMU in Prague, in the Department of Photography.

Martina Červenková, a debutante in this competition, is a recent graduate of VŠVU, but her view of painting is truly cinematographic; this is naturally connected with her dual course of studies, having likewise graduated in the field of film and photography. Her painting is not bounded: the artist negotiates it on a broad spectrum (like a film story) – now there’s a detail, another time a whole; the focus may be on the particular, or the atmosphere…

This is confirmed by her final entry Private Stages (2022), which catches one’s interest by an attempt at a certain Renaissance construction of the work (recalling Sandro Boticelli’s Birth of Venus). The glittering of a provocative garment evokes the glamour era of film, while Červenková deftly transposes this "feeling" to the current condition of painting. Similarly to Rineke Dijkstra’s photographic portraits, the present painting captivates us by the conflict of a certain hidden intimacy of the portrayed character and the very clear form of the pose. As in cinematography, so also in painting and photography one of the principal problems is light. Červenková negotiates it in a distinctive manner, not perceiving it as a fundamental quality of the picture but rather as a superstructure. In the artist’s own words: "The painting as a stage – a place for appearance, becoming, and encounter (including with oneself). At the same time, a space for presentation, performativity directed towards the viewer, but also the private form. Two registers, the private and the staged, overlap and intermingle – the private becomes extrovert, and the performative is a process of becoming and forming subjectivity. A game of identification and alienation."

(The text is from the catalogue for the competition Painting 2022, N. Gažovičová)