Ján Zoričák
magnagallery.sk/jan-zoricak-okna-do-vesmiru

He is one of the most important creators of European glass art. Born in Slovakia, he learned the basics of the trade at the Secondary Vocational School of Glassmaking in Železný Brod and the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (UMPRUM) with the support of world-renowned teaching artist such as Stanislav Libenský. Since the 1970s he has lived in the small town of Talloires in the French Alps, he is the creator and defining representative of contemporary French glass sculpting, and his activities as an organiser of education and institutions are also significant internationally. He took part in the creation of the now world-famous contemporary French glass museum and centre, the Musée du verre de Sars-Poteries, CIRVA (Le Center international de recherche sur le verre et les arts plastiques) in Marseille; and he also helped organise glass art courses at the universities of Quebec and Montreal. And he founded the Stone Art contemporary art gallery in his hometown of Ždiar. In 1987 he received the title of Knight of the Order of the Arts and the Letters in France. An eternal experimenter, he has also used the special glass used in CERN, the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, for his work. In his mainly optic glass-based sculptures, formed with clean silhouettes, he artistically models galactic and geological processes with the help of various materials and methods. His famous cycles include Space Messengers, Constellations, Space Bouquets, Stars, Space Gardens, Big Bang and the Polar Flower of the Arctic and Antarctic.