Matej Kvasnovsky

London based weekend artist, traveller and expatriate. Originally from Trencin.

I was born in Trencin, and I spent my entire childhood in the Juh neighbourhood, where my nickname Kvaso originated. After graduating from Gymnazium Ludovita Stura, I attended the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University in Brno. Upon completing a Master’s degree in 2010, I decided to stay in Brno and began a professional career as a UX designer. Since then, for over 15 years, I have been designing user interfaces for various mobile and web applications, with the aim of making them usable, useful, and pleasing.

In 2015, I moved to London to live and work, allowing me and my wife Samantha to build our English-speaking family. I have never formally studied artistic illustration; it is a passion I pursue in my free time, leveraging my experience in visual communication from my daily work. That is why my illustrations employ a simplified perspective, geometric shapes, and abstraction, relying on the viewer's imagination.

I also have a keen interest in architecture and travel and therefore, most of my illustrations depict (or at least resemble) distinctive structures from the countries I have visited, which remain in my memories. However, among all the places, one stands out: my hometown, Trencin, where I spent the first 18 years of my life. I know it like the back of my hand and through my drawings, I regularly revisit its streets and squares under the KvasoArt brand.

My style is inspired by artists such as Mikulas Galanda, Ludovít Fulla, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, as well as architects Josep Maria Subirachs, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Oscar Niemeyer. However, the most significant influence on me comes from the artists, illustrators, and calligraphers whom I follow on Instagram.