Painting 2025
Painting Competition – VÚB Foundation Prize for a Painting Work by Young Artists has, over the past two decades, become one of the most prominent initiatives supporting and promoting contemporary visual art in Slovakia.
This year again, we present the most outstanding talents among young professional painters in Slovakia and bring their art closer to the general public.
We invite you to the Nedbalka Gallery for the finalists’ exhibition, taking place from 19 September to 26 October 2025.
From more than 100 applicants, the international jury of renowned experts selected 20 finalists, once again including a significant share of new names. Ten debutants have been given the opportunity to present their works through this widely followed platform.
This year, the following artists are competing for the prestigious award (in alphabetical order): Zuzana Badinková, Adam Baník, Dávid Bátora, Martina Červenková, Daša Ďurišová, Michal Fízik, Marianna Franková, Paula Gogola, Paulína Halasová, Ľubomíra Chylová Sekerášová, Daniela Illéšová, Samuel Kollárik, Alžbeta Martof Pavčová, Jakub Mlynarčík, Ivana Mojšová, Alexandra Pradidová, Nikola Šušovicová, Šimon Tóth, János Vámos and Eva Vaňová.
The competing works are evaluated each year by a professional jury assembled in a unique composition. Distinguished representatives of both the Slovak and international art scenes ensure that the competition always gives space to the objectively best among the applicants. For the 20th edition, the jury includes Klara Kemp-Welch, art historian from the United Kingdom, Giovanni Morale, critic and historian from Italy, renowned Slovak visual artist Roman Ondak, and acclaimed Slovak painter Andrej Dúbravský, whose professional career was closely connected with the Painting Competition.
“We are delighted to celebrate this year’s jubilee, the twentieth edition of the competition, which is among the longest-running initiatives of the VÚB Foundation. We have always valued the feedback received from painters along this journey. It clearly shows that reaching the finals or winning the award brings artists prestige and recognition that open doors to the top league of the art world. For us, it is a great honour and at the same time a commitment for the future,” says Lucia Luptáková, Manager of the VÚB Foundation. Over the course of its history, the VÚB Foundation has recognised nearly 50 artists, awarding a total of EUR 400,000 in prizes.
This year as well, the VÚB Foundation will support the best artists with a total of EUR 30,000. At the same time, it will once again make the 20 best paintings accessible to the public through a free exhibition. The works of the finalists and further information about the Painting Competition 2025 are available at www.malba.nadaciavub.sk.
Viera Kraicová – Paintings 1962 – 1994
The exhibition presents the artist´s painting experiments hovering on the border of abstraction and figuration, her spontaneous gestural paintings, imaginative figurative works and returns to colour patch as a crucial means of expression and intermediary of emotional expression. There are also represented classical genres like still life or portrait as well as records of the artist´s spontaneous painting that, in a way, always followed the contours of a figural basis.
Renata & Marek Ormandík – Ravens, Busts and Flowers
The present exhibition is a result of common life, existence, efforts and creativity of Renata and Marek: painting, crocheting, drawing, knitting, thinking, inspiring one another.
Painting 2020
The VUB Foundation has a long history of supporting the visual arts. Its best-known activity is the prestigious and unique art competition Maľba (Painting) – The VUB Foundation award for paintings by young artists, which it is has run since 2006. The competition’s mission is to support the work of young artists, to contribute to its promotion, to improve and cultivate the art of painting, to raise the public profile of this art and to help young artists begin their careers in the arts.
Ferdinand Hložník – Exploring Identity Through Art
Ferdinand Hložník is among the most significant figures in the Slovak modern art.
Andrej Barčík – Axis Crossing the Horizon
Barčík focused on painting, drawing, lithograph, and used waste paper from printing works. He combined things, leaving nothing to chance.
The competition Painting – The VUB Foundation
The competition Painting – The VUB Foundation award for paintings by young artists has fulfilled its mission, which is to promote the most gifted professional painters in Slovakia and raise the public awareness of the visual art, for fourteen years.
Ladislav Mednyánszky – The 100th anniversary of artist´s death
Ladislav Mednyánszky (1852 Beckov – 1919 Viedeň) was one of the most significant painters at the turn of the twentieth century and the most famous Barbizon artist in Slovakia. During his lifetime he was recognised mainly as a landscapist. The Barbizon concept of landscape was in accordance with his inner world and he managed to bring the landscape painting in the manner of lyrical realism, which preferred the artist´s inner experience, individual feelings and moods, to the level of perfection.
Koloman Sokol 1968-1993
Eighteen works on paper in the Nedbalka Gallery´s collection come from the period of the 1970s and 1980s.