ARTIST'S BIOGRAPHY
Christine Marek-Matejka
Born in the Swan River Valley, Manitoba, Christine
Marek-Matejka developed her interests in the arts from a young age influenced
by her family's deep appreciation of painting and music. She recalls the family home filled with original art work and watching her dad and brother painting oils at the easel.
Growing up in a small community and exposed from an early age to unusually difficult circumstances, Marek-Matejka recalls a dark and often lonely childhood struggling to make sense of her world. Art and music became a silent and powerful voice through which to communicate her thoughts, feelings and experiences. A look at her earlier work touches upon this part of her life that she now speaks about candidly. Eventually, with the arrival of her first born, her work began to evolve from an ominously conceptual and literary statement on life to a significantly more lighthearted and nostalgic one.
"Children definitely bring a new focus and dimension to one's life. I was never so happy and passionate about anything then when I held my children for the first time when they were born. They were a bright light shining in the darkness.
(Stronghold, 2007)
Over the years Marek-Matejka's work has received numerous awards and recognition: She attributes her decision to pursue a professional career in the fine arts when, at the age of 16, she received first place honors at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto for her haunting portrait depicting the 1984 Ethiopian famine. Subsequently, her work was selected for a country-wide traveling exhibition of Canadian community art in 1989.
Marek-Matejka began her art and educational
training at the University of Manitoba graduating with a Bachelor of Arts
Degree with a major in art from Saskatchewan University in 1991. Thereafter, she participated in group
exhibitions and continued work on a series of post-modern paintings. In 1993 she and her young family settled in
the Swan Valley area where she continues to paint, teach, and share her love of art and music with her community.
Professional affiliations
include the Assiniboia Group of Artists Cooperative Inc., CARFAC MANITOBA as well as the Manitoba Society of Artist's.
In 2006 Marek-Matejka's work was accepted into the Manitoba Legislature as part of the FOURTH ANNUAL RURAL AND NORTHERN ART
SHOW, which featured a collection of best work by Manitoba rural artists. In that year she also presented a twenty piece solo exhibition, NEW LIFE, at the L. Watson
Art Center in Dauphin, Manitoba. Subsequently, in 2007, Christine took part in the exclusive OneofaKind Show and Sale in Toronto representing hundreds of top artisans from across the country. In 2008 and again in 2009, her paintings, 'Stronghold' and 'Born Sleeping' received third overall placings at the Manitoba Society of Artist's 76th and 77th Annual Juried Exhibitions.
Christine's
personal style has developed out of her exploration with a wide variety of
media in various combinations on unconventional surfaces. The resulting outcome is a rich textural
quality on an original surface that provides interesting and unpredictable
challenges. Some of her florals have
been likened to collage. Some have been mistaken for tapestries.
(Detail, Wildmix
Series No.100, 2006)
By incorporating the multi-faceted human subject into the vibrant Canadian landscape, Christine creates art with a strong psychological component evoking a sense of nostalgia and wonder about the fragile yet resilient human condition within the context of the natural world.
Christine Marek-Matejka, 2007
