Hello,
My name is Maria Horvathova. I am a landscape oil painter based in Northern Ireland. I was born in Slovakia in 1996, and I moved to Northern Ireland with my family in 2010. I have completed a bachelor's degree of Fine Art Painting (Honours) in 2019 at Belfast School of Art, where I was long listed with RDS Visual Art Award. I went to obtain Masters degree in Fine Art at the same University, and I received Royal Ulster Academy of Arts award at the end of this course in summer 2023.
I have been developing my practice in drawing and painting discipline for the past 11 years. After a life changing move from Slovakia to Northern Ireland, I found a strong connection to home in nature.
In my current practice I explore the reminders of landscape, in a romanticised and cherishing approach. I am interested in creating landscape oil paintings that act as an open window into the past and remind the viewer of nostalgic feelings by capturing the intimate moments of the wilderness. I am attached to nature as it has a significant impact on my identity. In my childhood I used to escape into nature, as it provided me with a feeling of freedom. This body of work is inspired by The Kiltonga Wildlife Reservation, Newtownards. This place holds similarities and nostalgic reminders of my childhood garden and environment. It connects me with the place that there once was in my presence.
Experimental approach towards painting allows me to get a sense of losing myself in the painting. I am using oil paint like watercolour, fluid and fast on the wooden board surfaces, to re-create chemical reactions by applying different mediums and thinners with oil paint to form bubble “error” effects, like polaroid photographs would create during the photography chemical development process.
Since 2020, I began to work on online collaboration projects. In July I collaborated with John Edward Connolly on an Online Residency where we exchanged our reading sources to create an art practice adaptation and response. From March 2020 I am working on ongoing collaboration with Zara Lyness by creating post card drawings as a way of coping with the pandemic isolation. This body of work has been developed into dialogue between Zara and myself in hope to connect and comfort each other during the unknown tough times.
I am a member of a-n The Artists Information Company since summer 2023 and a member of Catalyst Arts Belfast since 2025.
My work has been selected for many exhibitions nationally, and internationally including Heriot Gallery Edinburgh, LNV Gallery Latvia and recently I exhibited along side with Anna Horvathova in Platform Arts Belfast in August 2024.
I am open for commissions, and I am always interested about your ideas and interpretations, and would love to hear from you.
