Reflection on the Life and Work of a Painter Eva Trizuljaková

Mgr. art. Pavla Lazárková Trizuljaková, PhD /SK/ - visual artist, painter, author of installations

 

Eva Trizuljaková /1926-2019, Bratislava/ was a famous artist, painter, graphic artist, textile artist, publicist. She studied in ateliers of famous Slovak artists like Ján Mudroch /1909-1968/, Ľudovít Fulla /1902-1980/ and Vincent Hložník /1919-1997/. She was a mother of eight children, and her husband, Alexander Trizuljak /1921-1990/ was a well-known Slovak sculptor. She lived, and died at 92  in Bratislava. In her professional life she worked with variety of art techniques: graphics, oil painting, pastel, textile. The big part of her professional life she dedicated to a textile technique called “art-protis”, a Czecho-Slovak patent, technique of textile woolen collage. She was focused on Slovak poetry  and her most important work is inspired by “Krvavé sonety” by Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, the famous poet from the first half of the 20th century. Another source of inspiration for her was the Holy Scripture, above all The Old Testament. In the last period of her life, she continued in  her work using original textile technique of textile collage, where she used ancient liturgical textiles. The Loreto Litanies was her most important artwork where she incorporated and intertwined her believes as a Christian, her sorrows as a mother and her artistic skills altogether.

 

In the first half of the seventies in Czechoslovakia there was a period of "normalization". Her husband, Alexander Trizuljak had to leave the Academy of Fine Arts because of his Christian faith. Moreover Eva Trizuljaková developed a strong allergy to turpentine oil she used in her oil paintings. She had to finish with oil painting completely. The family was incomeless and therefore in difficult financial situation. At this moment unexpectedly came an opportunity. In Brno textile factory Vlněna had been developed a new textile art technique named art-protis. This technique was based on putting of layers of coloured wool on unspunned sheep wool combining it with other textile materials. The composition was, after the artist had finished her work, fixed industrially by sewing in needle machine. The author came to Vlněna for the first time  with her art friend, the painter Mária Filová.

 

Art-protis is a technique similar to paper collage. The artist can use dyed woolen layers and combine them with other textile materials, e.g embroidery, knitwork, etc. Eva Trizuljaková originally used to decorate her artwork with fragments of ancient liturgical textiles - paraments. With liturgical reform after Vatican II. there was a plenty of inutile paraments, which were supposed to be burnt. She had been collecting these old textiles since the 20th century´s seventies. Eva Trizuljaková applied in her tapestries also a special hand needlework which was produced and brought in by her daughter Michaela Trizuljaková.

 

Eva Trizuljaková had been attending the factory in Brno for over twenty years. She created a large-scale art work of more than 1000 tapestries. Her most important motif of work was a human figure. In her archive we can find a fairy tale figures, fayes, Slovak brides and Mothers of God. The Loreto Litanies is the most famous cycle of her work in the field of art-tapestry. This cycle was inspired by theological and historical study of Laurentian Litanies - their analysis and interpretation by Slovak  theologist Jozef Kutnik - Šmálov. The author - Eva Trizuljaková searched for a new form and artistic expression of this traditional theme. Her figures of Mother of  God look like they were intertwined with light. The wool, the material, with which a tapestry is created, has an enormous capacity of absorbing a dye. The colour emanates from the depth of a textile material. Eva Trizuljaková was deeply interested in studying and comprehension of a colour as a substance of light. For her, the colour was the symbol of light of the God. She used a large-scale pallette of bright spectral colours. She created a new figure of Mother of God. The figure is completely hidden in colour shadows and nuances. The only anatomical detail is a caring face of Our Holy Lady. As she commented, she desired to leave a visible manifestation of her faith, hope and love for oncoming generations.

After 2009, Eva Trizuljaková again began to create textiles. The liturgical textiles collected by the artist in the 1970s, became for her a source of new inspiration and expressed in the artist's late work - textile collages. Her sacral textiles form a kind of golden thread that interconnects her whole textile production. The author composes into one coherent whole the used and deferred “unnecessary” materials and gives them a new importance. Faded sacral textiles have a story. They are a proof of the piety of previous generations. By using old sacral textiles, the painter tried to give honour on the depth of piety and work of the human hands. In a new context, cuttings of ancient fabrics, paraments, embroidery, unique products of folk art, textile prints, or batik meet there. The compositions acquire a surprisingly strong postmodern character.

Eva Trizuljaková lived a full and fruitful life as a mother and as an artist, as well. She lived a generous talent story, diverse in terms of themes, painting and textile techniques, rich in offsprings in three generations. Her creative and human contribution is an admirable testimony of faith, an integration of one’s piety with the role of mother of large family, and the belief in the sense of life.

All her life was a great gratitude and wonder for the gifts of Creation.

 

 

Mgr. art. Pavla Lazárková Trizuljaková, PhD

 

Sources:

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_protis

https://old.katolickenoviny.sk/37-2011-eva-trizuljakova-loretanske-litanie/

https://www.teraz.sk/kultura/bratislava-eva-trizuljakova-vystava/179820-clanok.html

Exhibition Catalogue: Eva Trizuljaková, Dom kultúry Bratislava, 1976

Exhibition Catalogue: Eva Trizuljaková - Kresby, pastely, artprotisy, Požitavská galéria Nové Zámky, 2000

Exhibition Catalogue: Eva a Alexander Trizuljakovci, PGU Žilina, 2006

TRIZULJAKOVÁ, E.:  Údiv, úcta, úžas. Spomienky. Manuscript.