Ondrej 4. Zimka

Ondrej 4. Zimka is a Slovak sculptor and painter. He was born into a family of artists — his father is the well-known painter Ondrej Zimka and his mother the popular actress Milka Zimková; as the fourth Ondrej in the line of Zimka generations, he entered the art scene under the name Ondrej 4.

Education: 1989–1993 Secondary School of Applied Arts in Bratislava (department of stone sculpture); 1993–1999 Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, the studio of Professor Jozef Jankovič (some sources also mention Professor Meliš); 1997 a study stay at the University of Newcastle under Professor Henry Burton. A decisive influence on his work was the sculptor Andrej Rudavský, whose studio he came to help in and where he made his first sculptures between 1988 and 1998. In 2007 he completed a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris.

Since 1998 he has worked with Martin Pala and Stanislav Kič in the shared sculpture studio Tri kamene in Stupava, which also has a bronze foundry. He works with bronze, steel, stainless steel, stone, wood and other natural materials; since 2009 he has also painted. In 2017 he left Bratislava for the Kysuce region, where he built his own studio with a small sculpture park, ARTPARK. Thematically he works with the motifs of Venuses, carefree riders, a village in the valley, “heavenly creatures”, “peacemaking little clouds” and “sex bombs”; he often responds to political events and to news from the media. He makes both small-scale and monumental work as well as functional objects.

He has exhibited at home and abroad — London, Rome, Shanghai, Beijing, Moscow, Paris, Washington, Geneva; he takes part regularly in creative symposia. Works in public space: Deceitful Creature (Little Fish) in Čadca, A Village in the Valley in Stará Bystrica.

Awards: the prize for a young Slovak artist from Gerhard H. Meulensteen (2005); in 2012 a nomination, together with his colleagues from the Tri kamene studio, for the Crystal Wing award.