Kristyna Spanihelova

Bio

Kristýna Španihelová is a contemporary artist and educator. She lives in Czechia and works in Slovakia at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (SK), where she leads the Metal and Jewellery Studio. She has exhibited internationally and has received numerous recognitions, including being a Talente finalist (Munich, 2013), a finalist of the Bayerischer Kunstgewerbe-Verein competition (2010, 2013), and a finalist of KORU 5 (Imatra, 2015). She was nominated for the Czech Grand Design Award (2012) and received the Best Collection Award at Bratislava Design Week (2018) as well as the Slovak Fine Arts Union Prize (2009). Within the medium of jewellery, she is one of the most prominent artists on the domestic scene today, and her work continues to demonstrate progressive creative potential.

Statement

Kristýna Španihelová engages with the themes of time and transience. Dead nature (bones, dead insects, peat, etc.) becomes her primary material and medium. By combining organic fragments with traditional jewellery techniques (gilding, casting), she creates a specific aesthetic in which materials merge and their boundaries blur. Through this process, the alchemical aspect of her artistic personality emerges: the desire to accumulate and recycle natural objects, and the urge to capture the ephemeral. In an intimate dialogue with the material, she continually revives her work in new forms. As she notes: “To turn natural materials into jewellery, first they have to die, and then come to life again.”
/ Naďa Kančevová


Malka series, 2022
The "Malka" collection is inspired by my great-grandmother’s sister, Amalie Vašutová, who was arrested by the Gestapo in 1945 for aiding partisans and later executed. Her family never knew her fate until recently.
Through jewelry and graphic monotypes, I explore her story, family memories, and the trauma her disappearance caused. The pieces are created with materials that carry meaning, like fragments of photographs, letters, and traditional costumes. This collection reflects on the universal impact of war and the victims who remain unknown.
 

CV      

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