About Lucia
I paint places to breathe. My worlds are quiet and surreal — deep water, humming forests, skies you can climb into — built up in layers of acrylic, oil, ink, collage, and gold, in meditative blues and turquoises touched with a drop of wine red. I call the style accessible poetic surrealism: luminous and symbol-rich — no art background is needed; the paintings meet you where you are.
I spent years translating books and films before giving myself fully to painting, and in a sense I still translate. Fairy tales, psalms, and myths carry old wisdom about shelter, endurance, and inner light; I carry it across into images a viewer can rest inside. Each painting begins with a question — where do your storms grow quiet? what shelters you without your knowing? — and its symbols stay open, so the answer can be your own.
In an art world that often reaches for shock, I work deliberately in the opposite direction: toward peace, wisdom, and a beauty that holds up under long looking.
— Lucia Tužinská
Journey
Lucia's first craft was words. Born in Bratislava, she trained in Translation and Interpreting at Comenius University's Faculty of Arts and spent years translating books, film scripts, and television series.
She went on to become one of Slovakia's earliest advocates for homeschooling — vice-chair of the Slovak Homeschooling Association and, with her family, a public face of the movement in national media.
Painting ran alongside all of it: ten years of study under Mgr. art. Soňa Herényiová-Belanová. In 2021 she gave herself to it fully — she still describes painting as a kind of translation. Curator PhDr. Ľuboslav Moza of the ARTEM gallery took notice that same year, beginning a collaboration that continues today, and in 2022 an international jury at the 24th Premio Internazionale d'Arte San Crispino in Italy awarded her the Special Jury Prize — the start of a growing exhibition record across Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and Italy.
Today Lucia lives with her husband and their daughters in a straw-bale house in the White Carpathians, dividing her time between the countryside and her beloved Bratislava.
Education & Training
- Ten years of painting studies under Mgr. art. Soňa Herényiová-Belanová
- Two-year program in Art Therapy, "Intervention through Art" (Intervencia umením), with Prof. PaedDr. Jaroslava Šicková-Fabrici at Terra Therapeutica (260 hours)
- Internationally certified foundational program in Life Coaching, Christian Coach School
- Some 100 hours of experiential therapy and supervision with Mgr. Viera Pachová, trained in Compassionate Inquiry under Dr. Gábor Maté
- 120 hours of experiential psychoanalytic art therapy with academic painter Kamila Ženatá
- Over 2,500 hours of self-study in art, therapy, and personal development
Beyond the Canvas — AlterDiem
Alongside her painting practice, Lucia is a certified art therapist and founder of AlterDiem, a studio in Bratislava and Moravské Lieskové offering painting classes and art-therapy sessions. Her philosophy: "healing art, with the art of healing."
No prior experience is needed to attend the sessions — just the willingness to pick up a brush and discover what's asking for attention within.