Ena Bán has devoted herself professionally to painting, drawing, graphic art and installations since 1981. She has exhibited independently in many countries including the UK, USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Japan.
She was awarded the prestigious Gold Prize at the Kutani International Ceramics Graphic Design Competition 1997 in Kanazawa-Ishikawa, Japan. She has also taken part in international exhibitions of graphic art and painting in Germany, Canada, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, USA and other countries.
Since 2014 she has concentrated on her own work which is primarily concerned with social themes. She has taken part in a number of projects: Dopady a odrazy (Implications and Images), Manipulácia obrazu (Handling of the Image), Synergetický proces (The Synergetic Process), Extra plate, Kozm (et)ické divadlo (Cosmic/Ethical Theatre).
Ena’s current project: “Erotický masaker” (Erotic Massacre) is a response to current global concerns. She reflects on individualism and loss of identity, and offers a positive perspective, a specific solution: the renewed discovery and transformation of lost values – family, home, nature.
Central to her contemporary work is the creation of painted images that have their basis in digital media, strategies of mass culture and the function of advertising in media. The artist’s profile is shaped by maturity, openness and her ethical commitment. Alfredo Pasolino, international art critic, National Gallery of Art, Washington (USA).noted this in his article “Fratellanze astratiste sulle ali dell‚ impulso poetico” of
From 1998 – 2008 she worked as an instructor at the Department of Creative Education and Art at Prešov University in Prešov.
From 2009 – 2013 she worked as the director of the East Slovak Gallery in Košice where she worked, among others, on two internationally recognized projects: “Andy Warhol and Júlia” and “The Košice Modern” in the scope of the project Košice – European Capital of Culture.
In co-operation with Andy Warhol’ brother, Paul, with whom she exhibited in the Koloman Sokol Gallery in Washington, DC, she presented Andy Warhol and the most important woman in his life – his mother Júlia. As curator of the project The Košice Modern, in cooperation with institutions and experts from New York to Uzhhorod, she assessed for the first time the most significant creative period of Košice in the 1920s, when Košice was an international centre of art similar to Paris, Weimar, Vienna or Prague. Elisabeth Clegg (London) published a review of the book Košická moderna (The Košice Modern) in the professional magazine ART’S.
Ena lives and works in Košice and Bratislava.