Archa

Ivan Patúc

Ivan Patúc was born on December 11th, 1968 in the town of Myjava, in the western part of the Trenčín Region in Slovakia. In 1983, he started studying at the Secondary Vocational School in Senica. After graduating, he decided to pursue an artistic career and began to develop his talent at the Secondary School of Art Industry in Bratislava, majoring in ceramics. Afterwards, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, studying sculpture in the studio of Prof. J. Jankovič; he completed his studies there in 1997. Ivan Patúc’s artistic work combines industrial semi-finished product – the rolled metal sheet, with tradition and his individual creative approach. Already during his university studies, Ivan Patúc came up with the technique of interlacing aluminium strips. Since then, he has continued the authentic dialogue with metal, and he has been searching for and uncovering the secrets of this material. He acquainted himself with metal and plumbing techniques already as a teenager in a family tinsmith workshop. It was there that he tried out various methods of working with metal, such as riveting, trimming, grooving, bending, and hammering of copper, brass, iron and bronze sheets. Ivan Patúc describes his inspiration as follow: “I find my inspiration in the work of the architect Frank O. Gehry, especially in his work with metal. In my figural work, I admire the simplicity of Egon Schiele’s drawings. I also like finding inspiration in history, such as Renaissance and Baroque painting, as I am especially interested in the play of light and shadow.” Ivan Patúc uses a well-known tinsmith technique in his work. He creates object or relief figural creations by using rolled metal sheets. An essential element in his work forms an apparent or hidden line creating a contrast between the planar and the spatial part of the reliefs. The author creates visually appealing units by combining brass, copper, aluminium, iron, cast iron or wood. The visuality of his work is mainly highlighted by stylising the characters and the overall aesthetics of the scenes. He relies on historical, as well as contemporary themes, sometimes directly imitates the work of old masters, while other times he depicts lyrical moments or epic situations straight from life. Ivan Patúc has significantly contributed to the emancipation of metal as a sculptural material and creatively evaluated its specific properties when he discovered various forms for its processing and construction options.