Živa
(She/Her)
My Body is Your Nest, 2020
Watercolor
Statement:
Cosleeping is the most natural way of sleeping for infants. It should be encouraged not the opposite.
Alt Text:
In the centre of the painting is a mother snuggled in with her small child in egg-like-shape of burned orange colour. The child is completely sheltered by the mother's body that creates a feeling of safety and coziness. Both of them are sleeping, mother’s hands serving them as pillows. Their bodies are bounded with dark grey lines. Some of the muscles are coloured in dusty pink or light grey. Hair of the mother looks a bit like scales or fancy feathers in autumn colours - mustard yellow, burned orange, dark red.
Around the egg is some white space that ends with a dark orange line. The line divides in many other lines to the sides all around the egg and creates a visual impression of swirling. There are thinner bronze lines inside it. From distance it looks like grass moving in the wind. The space inbetween the lines-grass is coloured either in brown-dark orange colour or dusty pink-light grey tones. The brown bits have some bronze details that look like cracking soil.Two of the bigger dust pink shapes are decorated with tiny black spirals and circles that look a bit like frog eggs.
prints available: contact
Great Goddess Mother, 2020
Watercolor
Alt Text:
The main character of the picture is the Great Black Goddess Mother made in black and brown colour. There is a white line around her closed eyes, mouth, nose, eyebrows, and chin. Her lips are decorated with thin lines of dark red (top lip) and golden (bottom lip). Her eyelids are covered with golden webs that look a bit like cracking eggs. The Goddess has a huge dark red and mustard yellow scarf around her head.
Around her head is a huge golden circle that connects seven smaller circles together. In these smaller circles are moons in different phases with female figures inside representing the changing energy of women during their cycle. Full moon is on the right side of the Goddess’s head looking also a bit like an earring as is positioned where her ear would be. The woman inside the full moon is in her full power - arms and thighs wide open, she might be dancing. If you follow her clockwise around the big circle you will see how she is slowly coming to her inner world (child pose) close to the new moon phase. The moons and the women in small circles are made in different shades of grey with a slight touch of red colour. The space in the big circle is filled with golden lines. On their crossings are golden dots of different sizes. It looks a bit like star signs but doesn’t show any known ones. Some of the shapes created by the crossing lines are coloured in purple/violet tones. About ⅓ of them stay white which gives a feel of spaciousness.
The bottom part of the painting shows the chest of the Great Goddess, top part of her pregnant belly and her arms. Her right hand is holding a half-circle of mothers who are sitting on her big saggy breasts with pointy nipples decorated with golden colour. There are six mothers either with their children or pregnant. Two of them are breastfeeding. You can feel a strong connection between them. The mothers as well as children are made in mustard yellow colour with brown tones highlighting their body shapes. All of them have dark brown hair made in different styles. The circle continues with more subtle body shapes that could represent their ancestors or spirits that are waiting for being born. The circle ends with bright red necklaces of the Great Goddess made from down pointing triangles in the bottom part and golden circles surrounded by red stripes in the top part.
The background is made with various shades of purple and violet with subtle tones of blue and red. It gives a feel of being in the cosmos.
About Eva Blažková
Živa is a mother and self-taught artist with a base in socio-cultural anthropology. She combines her poetic writing with fine art and sometimes adds to it movement.
Živa's artwork heals, honors and celebrates womanhood with a emphasis on early motherhood themes. Živa is deeply interested in native cultures, mythologies and archetypes. Neverthless most of her inspiration comes from the inside.
For Živa, to create is to reach above the boundaries of the rational mind and experience the higher self. The creative process also enables her to enter the realm of the subconscious.
Živa works mainly with watercolour for its organic character and the direct contact with the water-element. Living in the city causes an urge for drawing black lines and focusing more on decorative details.
Currently Živa lives with her husband, son and two housemates in Bristol, UK. However her nature-loving soul pulls her out of the city back to the countryside of Czechia where she is originally from. She is on the way to make her dream true – living on the land of Moravian mountains called Jeseníky.