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SIMONA ŠUC / The Immensity of the Colour Perspective
UGM Studio, Trg Leona Štuklja 2
7. June - 6. July 2019
opening: Friday, 7. June 2019, 19:00
artist talk: Friday, 7. June 2019, 18:00

exhibition curator: Andreja Borin


The painting of Simona Šuc desires to be comprehensive. It is incited by the profound contact with the artist's own essence. It is incited by the conscious attitude of the artist-observer, who, in things read and experienced, comprehends the unison with herself. It is incited by the painting process, by drawing circular shapes, by generating rhythms and textures on the canvas. It is incited by echoes, which the painter through her personal experience recognises in the external world. It is incited by the indescribable presence, which the artist subtly perceives behind the material appearance of the world. It is incited by sounds, words, music, movements, natural rhythms… Is there anything (truly significant) that does not participate in this painting process? I do not think so. Everything that is currently in the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental reach of the painter finds its echo in a painting, a sketchbook, or in a word.

"As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul," are the words attributed to the writer, philosopher, and mystic teacher Hermes Trismegistus, who allegedly lived in the 2nd century BC. Numerous writings about the divine, the cosmos, the mind, and nature that testify to a uniquely comprehensive view of the world have been attributed to him. He is the purported author of the influential work Corpus Hermeticum, which has been lost in Latin scripts, survived in the Byzantine libraries, and influenced the spread of Renaissance through translations by Renaissance authors. Hermeticism, as this teaching is called, is part of the Gnostic tradition, which seeks to communicate with supreme beings without the intervention of religious mediators. Other teachings of Hermeticism also include statements like: "Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates"; or "Everything has its polar opposite"; or "Everything comes from the mind"; or "Everything has its masculine and feminine principles". Hermes Trismegistus is also attributed the phrase: "God is a circle, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere." It is interesting that, in certain parts, these ancient learnings concord with the painting of Simona Šuc.

Another example of concordance could be, for example, the painting of the Aborigines. This proves that the human nature is essentially timeless and universal, provided it is free, having no religious or other restrictive social frameworks. The human spirit can reach transcendence, the gates of the divine. It should be emphasised, however, that the interpretation of this experience is utterly personal and cannot be enveloped or explained through comparisons.

Simona Šuc writes in her sketchbook, for example: "To outline a perfect circle, means to seek perfection, to resort to illusion." This sentence portrays the movement and awareness of the painter's hand, as well as the awareness that in creation only a convergence towards perfection exists. The awareness that the circle created by her hands is not perfect does not deter her from the chosen form; it is sufficient for her to reach this realisation. In fact, the circle is perfect in its imperfection. It is perfect for its own purpose. It represents the basic component of her painterly visions, enabling her to create countless versions and variations, countless mental landscapes, countless colour perspectives of the immense range of colours, as the title of her current exhibition suggests.

The exhibited paintings have beautiful, poetic, and mystical names: the immensity of colour surfaces, blossom of the colour, rainbow of growth, crystal clarity of the fabric of truths, or the sound of water in the snowy depths. They are some kind of kōans (Zen Buddhist sayings of high metaphoric density, intended for awakening, as 'the flap of one hand', for example) or spiritual signposts to the viewer's imagination, but not more than that. They unfold the nature of the painting, but do not confine it. The painter writes the titles with lower-case initials, indicating that all elements in the title are equivalent. Viewers are invited to feel, surrender, discover, vibrate; they are invited to leave their inner playful child to evolve freely; they are invited to feel yet unknown impulses, to invent their own magical, mystical title for the painting, which they feel vibrates with them.

Simona Šuc's opulent painting visions surpass the scope of space and time, as we know them. For a moment, they lead us across the threshold of the corporeal and to surrender ourselves to the unknown, but infinitely abundant, colourful, and lively landscapes, in which each individual part participates in the harmony of the whole, and the whole resounds in every, even the smallest part.

KINDLY INVITED!