I have always been fascinated by human stories.
My own story, which gradually led me to creating straw sculptures, began forty-four years ago in central Slovakia and continues to this day in the west – around Trenčín and Nové Mesto nad Váhom.

From travels through roughly fifty countries on four continents, where I lived for several years, I gradually brought back experiences, visions, inspirations and stories that I later poured into my work. And now that I’ve learned to weld, I even tack things together myself.

Creating sculptures from straw is now one of the chapters of my life story – but definitely not the last one.

My path so far has followed trails reminiscent of the meanders of the Orinoco delta, where I once sailed with my good friend Beck – who else =). It has taken me from an electrical engineering school at an aircraft repair plant, through sports school and professional football, to working as a professional natural builder in Australia (www.vivahomes.com.au) and as a specialist in construction joinery (www.boonbuilding.com.au/). Later, back in Slovakia, in my own small company (www.letokruh.sk), I led workshops and helped develop natural building in Slovakia in close cooperation with www.ozartur.sk, went into gardening and permaculture, launched the “clay caravans” project (www.zdravekaravany.sk), and finally arrived at my current work on large-scale straw sculptures (www.wowstraw.art).

Last summer I spent time with children at the ZOO Academy in Bojnice, where I led clay workshops for young academics so they could swap their screens for a more fascinating world for a while.

There were more or less four of us preparing the exhibition of sculptures, and time-wise it took about three months. Even though it is my debut, these are still professional works, and I dare say they contain tens of thousands of hours of experience and stories from my travels. I hope you enjoy it just as much =)