Slavomir Zombeck is a Slovakian artist, who lives and works in the town Levoca. He works with painting, drawing, mixed media, graphic art and architecture. Through his works, he communicates not the reality, but the feelings that give him the sense of reality. As he considers his own identity as a little space, he strives to achieve the maximum effect by using the minimum means of expression.

His collage works are not like any works of the same medium I have ever seen before. When we think about collage, we think about photomontage, a technique has been heavily used due to its immediacy. Anyone can cut photos from old magazines and newspapers, and put them together in a funny or bizarre way, and call it a collage. The fact that the component of this kind of collage is derived directly from the mass media, leads the final product unavoidably taking up a more or less “pop” look. We are tired of it. We are tired of letters pop out randomly in Dadaism fashion. We are tired of the cliché of a beautiful poster model being cut off eyes, which are replaced by ravens or lotus. I’m glad I saw Zombeck’s collage in such a weather, under which I always feel nauseous. His minimalist collage and pencil drawing works like a shot of placebo. Standing in front of his works, you’re standing in front of an empty city, a dry well, or a winter ocean of grey waves.

In his geometric abstraction, the rhythm is conveyed through interrelation of the empty space and the repetition of a singular geometric shape. The empty space, where the eye first to omit and then to linger on is the true space for meditation. The pure, minimal design touches the spiritual aspect of Zen Buddhism, which coincides with that of Agnes Martin’s. Zombeck and Agnes Martin share the notion that using minimum expression to achieve the maximum effect. Martin considered herself an abstract expressionist instead of a minimalist, since her art is to provoke inner feeling instead of accomplishing certain visual affects. I think the same can be applied to Zombeck’s art: a pure sensation to clear the mind.

Ms. Siqiao Lu
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1988 graduated from Faculty of Architecture, STU Bratislava