Lara Jeranko Marconi / exhibition opening
Lara Jeranko Marconi / The Fool
UGM Kabinet, Strossmayer Street 6
Friday, 19 January 2024, 19:00
curator: Majda Božeglav Japelj (Piran Coastal Galleries)
You are cordially invited to the opening of the exhibition of works by the Koper based painter and illustrator Lara Jeranko Marconi, which will take place on Friday, 19 January 2024, at 19:00 in the UGM Kabinet.
Works selected for the exhibition were created in the period of the last five years (2018-2022) and are included in various thematic cycles, which carry telling titles such as: Icons, Relics, Portraits, Tapestries, Correspondence, Folders… No less significant or crucial is the title of the exhibition: The Fool. In the Tarot, The omnipresent figure of the Tarot cards, the Fool also inhabits the magical world of Lara’s images.
The author depicts him as a humanized animal being, an amiable wolf, which in its many transformations enters a complex sequence of events on wall and spatial tapestries, in filigree woven relief paper structures, and in softly embroidered images on canvas and drawings.
In a series of 21 drawings titled Blue tarot, the fool personifies purity of spirit, joy, happiness, positive mood. The next moment, however, he can unconsciously slip into despair and a premonition of his own end. In a way, he preserves the image of a tragic character, which illustrates a person’s journey through life, full of various experiences.
Lara’s world of plant arabesques and humanised animal figures is often narratively condensed on monochrome two-dimensional surfaces, where a dramatically compact content unfolds in the central circular composition. In these postmodern herbariums, which remind us of the oneiric world of the Dutch Renaissance painter Hieronimus Bosch, the inaudible vibration of plants can be felt. In the feverish energy of imagination, these plants host, grow over, intertwine with, or swallow the mute inhabitants of spatially and temporally indeterminable spaces, the artists’ imaginary landscapes.
The seemingly normal context with elements of the absurd, which we perceive in the work of the coastal artist, requires the viewer’s attention and collected observation.
In fact, it is a rather unusual approach in modern times of fast and superficial consumption of everything, not just of images. Lara’s fragile paper creations, imbued with lyrical sadness through which caustic irony flows, speak of the mysterious nature of life and man’s relationship to the world.
They allude to the generic and variable power of art; they are like some kind of talismans, living entities, with the magical ability to influence, transform the individual and thus the entire world.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Piran Coastal Galleries.
