Veronika Vlkova ACR
About Me
Veronika Vlkova is the Principal Conservator and Director of Mareva Conservation Ltd (formerly known as VA Conservation, which she founded in 2003), a multi-disciplinary conservation organisation that takes great pride and joy in ensuring that damaged cultural heritage placed in their care is treated with the utmost care & due diligence and that its integrity is maintained.
Veronika (ACR, an accredited conservator-restorer by the Institute of Conservation - ICON) has extensive experience in working for prominent museums, national institutions as well as private clients. Her knowledge and experience encompass conservation of works of art, sculptures, monuments, memorials, paintings and variety of organic & inorganic objects ranging from antiquity to contemporary pieces. Veronika is committed to the highest standards of conservation, restoration, craft skills and material knowledge. This is upheld through continuous learning, conservation ethics and a deep understanding and appreciation of art & history.
Veronika believes in the importance of sharing conservation knowledge and skills. Since 2012, she has been giving lectures to MA conservation students at Birmingham City University on the subject of stone conservation. She also gives regular talks and presentations at national and international conferences.
With over 20 years’ experience in a wide range of conservation disciplines, Veronika oversees all of Mareva’s projects as well as working ‘hands on’. She is responsible for all aspects of the business management and development. Under her direction, Mareva Conservation Ltd provides a holistic approach to a wide variety of conservation and restoration projects for clients across the UK. The client list is vast and includes numerous museums (the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham Museums Trust, Worlverhampton Museum & Art Gallery, Leamington Spa Art Gallery & Museum, Wallsall Museum & Art Gallery, Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, Abington Park Museum, Kidderminster Museum, Llandudno Museum, Samuel Johnson Museum etc.), ecclesiastical clients (St Philip’s Cathedral in Birmingham, Lichfield Cathedral, All Saints Church in Wing, St Martin's Church in Birmingham, Cathedral Church of St Marie in Sheffield, The Oratory in Oxford, St. Michael and All Angels Church in Great Whitley, Shrewsbury Abbey and many more), universities & schools (Oxford University, Aston University, University of Birmingham, Oscott College in Birmingham etc.), local authorities (county/city/parish councils of Birmingham, Churchdown, Shropshire, Warwickshire etc.), historic houses (Aston Hall, Woodmancote Manor, Stowe House, Compton Verney etc.) and private clients (collections of Lord Rothschild, Duke & Duchess of Devonshire, Royal Shakespeare Company any many others).
Client Testimonials
‘’It was a pleasure working with Mareva Conservation.
Having worked with Veronika for years I had always been impressed by her professional attitude, thorough communication and attention to detail.
At Birmingham Cathedral some funds for repair to a memorial in the churchyard became available. We approached Veronika. She responded quickly to our brief and arranged to carry out a full site visit. She took complete account of our health and safety concerns about access to water and trailing wires and additionally took on board our desire to make the conservation works publicly engaging. The memorial is in a busy part of the churchyard and thousands of people pass it every day. She supplied a full, illustrated and detailed method statement and approach as well as a breakdown of costs & contingencies.
Veronika established great relations with all on-site staff from Dean to Vergers, aiding the logistics of the project enormously. All contracted staff working with Veronika equally professional and health and safety was highly regarded at all times with additional barriers brought into protect the memorial whilst work was in progress.
The stone repairs, cleaning and re-gilding were all done with great sensitivity and to a very high standard. Veronika communicated each aspect of the work in simple terms allowing us to create an interpretation panel and a blogpost of the work in progress for visitors. Veronika even spoke to a local TV station about the project on-site.
In summary Veronika’s friendly demeanour, professional skills and willingness to work collaboratively meant that the conservation of the memorial acted as a great way of communicating our heritage to the public. She also produced a final report of the works which is now included in our inventory files.
I would not hesitate to work with Mareva again.’’
Jane McArdle, Heritage Manager
Birmingham Cathedral
Birmingham Cathedral
TOMB MEMORIALWe found Mareva (formerly VA Conservation) through the ICON register. We invited them and 3 others to quote for the cleaning of the Foley Memorial. The quotes came in at similar prices but we were particularly impressed by the obvious enthusiasm of Veronika Vlkova for this project. We obtained references from previous projects that they had worked on. Veronika was also recommended by members of the DAC as particularly suited to this work. We visited Compton Verney to view the work that they had undertaken there and were impressed with what we saw.
Mareva Conservation started work exactly on schedule and kept to their schedule of work the whole way through, despite interruptions from our many visitors to the church. They performed tests on the memorial before decided the best solutions to use. They worked in a very clean and health-and -safety conscious way. They provided literature to explain to our visitors what they were doing and also kept us informed the whole way through. They finished the work exactly on schedule and provided a comprehensive report on what they had done. We are very pleased with the appearance of the memorial now.
It was a pleasure to have them in our church, we highly recommend them and would definitely use them again.
Angela Snow
Church Warden
Great Witley Church
