Thursday 31 May 2012

ITTP Prague TEFL: Monthly Guest Writer

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"A great artist is always before his time or behind it" (George Edward Moore).  
This month we decided to interview a locally respected artist. Marketa Bendova, born in Prague and educated at the Silesian University in Opava (Czech Republic), very kindly took time out of her very busy schedule to speak with ITTP and answer our questions. Marketa's first language is Czech so she did ask us to excuse her for her broken English but we feel that Marketa's English is very good and this article has been published unedited. Here is Marketa's interview:


1. Where has your work has been exhibited?
My work exhibits in the Czech Republic and abroad. Examples of venues where my work has exhibited in the Czech Republic are: Galerie 5. patro, Praha, Gelerie Altán Klamovka, Praha, Galerie PHP, Praha,  Galerie FotoGrafic, Praha, Dům umění, Opava, Galerie Opera, Ostrava, Galerie GM, Pardubice.
Examples of venues where my work has exhibited abroad are: ATHENS INTERNACIONAL VIDEOART FEST, Galeria Szara, Czeszin, Poland, Milano Film Festival, SONY AWARDS Bratislava, Slovensko, Videokemp, Berlin, Plan 9, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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2. What type of genre of art is your work?
The main part is photography and I use a lot of postproduction processing, editing of pictures, etc. I like to make collages, videocollages, assembly. I love to combine everything. I'm also interested in fashion photography. Recently I have bocome very interested in making design, jewelry with my own photographic motives, fashion by using recycling  materials and put on them my photographic motives, combine them with recycled textile pictures, etc. I love yoga and have a inspiration from spiritual motives that this brings (creating my own mandalas, produce yoga mat bags, taking spiritual pictures (of buddha), etc.

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3. What is the purpose of your art?
It's difficult to say...I enjoy it!

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4. How important do you think art is in the modern world?
Art is very important for our modern world. To me it seems, that only society which allows/encourages artistic and cultural growth, is healthy. And you can see, how healthy it is, what people need and what they have too much of. Art is great filter - you can see everything so truly. It is a mirror of society.

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5. Where do you draw your inspiration(s) from?
I draw my inspiration from everything i can see. Its patterns, colors, sentences, feelings, movements, combinations, variations...usually it creates sounds for me and i know that its mine. Its like making a collection - you find you like something and you decide to make a collection of all those things.

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6. How important is art in Prague?
In Prague the importance of art is the same as in every city.  Prague people are used to seeing and having Art near. It has also a very important social aspect - people meet each other, develop their creativity and with it also their social thinking and social-political meaning...art can crystalize the good part of them and i hope it could change darker sides of our country in the future.

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7. Is there anything else which you would like to add Marketa?
I consider artists the bravest and hardest working people, because i can see a lot of them - they decide to create work, that people often will not understand, they will not receive any money and people around will often label them as a slob, broken freak, ill eccentric etc., because they cant maybe imagine, how a lot of hard work is in it. - this maybe belongs to point 6 in this article?


Anyone interested in learning more about the author or her work can contact Marketa on her Faceboook profile:
http://www.facebook.com/marketa.bendova.3
Marketa has also an online shop (ZooMarket Fashion Therapy), in its early stage of development and which can be viewed here:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/zoomarketnu?ref=seller_info
More info on the ZooMarket brand can be viewed here:
http://www.mwl.cz/site/zoomarket/home


Hezky den!/Lovely day!
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Location: Prague, Czech Republic