Marko Jakše
Marko Jakše. "You have been crying, my dear?" "I have been crying and I still am. I will be crying forever." (selected paintings from the Australian series More Fresheast Meat)
UGM l Maribor Art Gallery, Strossmayerjeva 6
Opening: Thursday, 14 October 2010 at 19:00
Marko Jakše is one of those artists whose diverse artwork could be placed into different periods. He is a “painter that sculpts” and he “constructs” his paintings as architectural creations built by outlines and shaped by colours. Gradually and progressively. He is a poet who turns poems into paintings and he is a writer who tells stories as life would unfold before our eyes in a single motion. Instantaneous and swift as lightning. He is an artist however he would disagree with this expression and he is one of the greatest contemporary artists although he wouldn’t be pleased with this assertion either. He is a unique and original artist and though many have tried it is very difficult to place his art into specific art movements.
The connection of this kind of an artist with Australia, the homeland of drawings dating back to 40.000 B.C., is like making one of the many stories of our civilization. Australian Aborigines are telling their stories through drawings and Australia is a continent composed by these stories. It takes just one look at their drawings to get to know the history of Australia and understanding of Aborigines means to increase the understanding of our own culture as well. In our culture we sometimes divide art and life, but Aborigines believe that life is art and that’s why their connection to nature is so genuine. Man are living creatures and a part of the nature just like animals, plants, earth, water, air, fire and stones. Moreover a painting tells us a life story and consists of symbolic meanings, surface and inner state of the man. The artist’s paintings reflect his three month journey and above all a life journey across Australia (he also lived and worked in The Art Vault Residence in Mildura).
Marko Jakše (1959, Ljubljana) is in his own words a self-taught artist. He graduated in 1987 at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. Since then he is a freelance artist. He has exhibited his work in various solo shows and group exhibitions at home as well as abroad and received several national and international awards.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration between Scientific and Research Association for Art, Cultural-Educational Programmes and Technology - EPeKa and UGM.
