Fragments / exhibition opening
Fragments / exhibition opening
UGM Šop, Strossmayerjeva 6
Thursday, 30 November 2023, 18:00
curator: Andreja Borin
You are invited to the opening of the sales exhibition Fragments of Blažka Križan, an artist of the younger generation who uses a scalpel to carve rippling, organic forms into paper.
The process is physical and resembles the removal of sculptural material; the end product is light and translucent, like lace. The resulting spatial drawings are little, separate worlds, which undulate in delicate white tones. The adage "less is more" certainly relates to Blažka Križan's art. It was not until she began to study painting that she realised she liked working with paper and a scalpel which replaced the pencil. We do not miss colour in her artwork, nor do we look for it. A dynamic interplay of relationships, such as shadows, texture, the motif's relationship to the substrate, the progression of the waves, etc., arises in the small space between the surface of the paper and the depth generated by the cut-out shapes. Some themes evoke op art motifs that lead the eye into a spatial illusion, while others are more organic and inspired by nature and natural phenomena. Each artwork tells a short story about the nature of the world. It is also about the nature of a world that we do not perceive or see. These intriguing stimuli are an endless source of imagery begging to be portrayed. It is apparent that Blažka Križan will not run out of inspiration for a long time.
Blažka Križan was born in Ptuj in 1990. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2012 with a major in painting under Prof. Marjan Gumilar, and then went on to complete her master's degree in painting under Professors Zmago Lenárdič and Dr Jure Mikuž (2017). For her master's thesis, she received the Prešeren Student Award. She was also awarded the Primavera Charter of the Maribor Fine Artists Society (DLUM) in 2018, a prize at the DLUM exhibition in 2020, and the Young Author Prize at the Ex-tempore Piran in 2022. She is a member of the Maribor Fine Artists Society. She lives and works in Ptuj.
