Borut Popenko / Openings
Borut Popenko / Openings
Galerija Loža, Titov trg 1, Koper
27 September–8 December 2024
curator: Jure Kirbiš
25 years ago, on the occasion of exhibitions in the Rotovž Exhibition Salon and the Loža Gallery, Aleksandra Kostič wrote: “It all starts with empty space, which brings about an adrenalin rush in Popenko.” A quarter century later, painter Borut Popenko returned to the Loža Gallery and the Rotovž Exhibition Salon, now rebranded as UGM Studio. But the departure point remains the same. From the very start, Popenko is drawn to the fundamentals of painting, from the materiality of the medium to the design of space. In his exploration of colours and shapes, proportions, compositions, volumes, and harmony, he refers to the tradition of abstraction in painting, from abstract expressionism, colour field painting, and geometric abstraction to monochrome painting and minimalism. Among his role models are the giants of abstract art – Mark Rothko, Josef Albers, Morris Louis, Ellsworth Kelly – and the contemporaries – Anish Kapoor, Peter Halley, Gerwald Rockenschaub.
In his painting practice, Popenko addresses the tense relationship between painting-object and painting-image. He poses the question: Is it possible to fold a canvas, to unfurl layers of a canvas into a fan, to open up a canvas, like a door? A canvas cannot be folded without breaking the stretcher on which the canvas is mounted. Layers of canvas can be fanned out, only if several layers are stacked together. And the only way to open up a canvas is by cutting into it. And yet, the effect of Popenko’s paintings is just that – folded, fanned, opened.
Thus, we search for answers in the fundamental deception of painting – the illusion of space. A corner is not difficult to depict in painting. Anyone can draw two sides of a cube in perspective, with the two sides forming a corner. With the most basic understanding of perspective, volume, shading, and colour we possess the skill to cross the threshold from a canvas to the three-dimensional space of a painting. With this, we leave behind the surface that carries the image – the canvas itself. In this case, the canvas is only the frame around an opening through which we look into a space that continues into in and beyond the edge of the field of vision. However, Popenko manages to convince us of both at the same time – a painting is an object/canvas and a painting is a space/illusion. How does he achieve this?
The proof is in the process. The painter's search for an image is guided by play and intuition. Popenko builds colour compositions using a number of methods. He employs coloured papers, holding them up against the wall in order to explore the relationships between two, three, or more colours. He uses old print ads and folds them into endless combinations of shapes. He creates simple three-dimensional mock-ups from cardboard and sketches them on paper. This playful practice ends once the right composition is found. Then the canvas is carefully shaped, then stretched and primed, and the painting process starts; and everything, without exception, follows the original design meticulously.
The result is a dynamic, shifting, multi-layered process fixed in a flat, irregularly shaped object, which taken together forms a painting in dialogue with the viewer. “Despite the fact that his creative output is based on geometric abstraction," wrote Alenka Domjan, "there is no lack of storytelling in the figurative sense, as the viewer replaces this fundamental element with their own presence in an active relationship with the picture." Indeed, standing before the paintings the viewer is caught in a kind of cerebral loop – one of the artist's gestures of folding, of revealing, of his opening up of both the canvas and the space.
This time around, Borut Popenko enters UGM Studio and the Loža Gallery with a new series of paintings. In his search for a title for the series and the two exhibitions, the author referred to the atmosphere of the early 2020s, which was characterised by distance, a state of closure, of solitude. With his new series, Popenko opens the door, pushes the windows open, raises the blinds, and invites us to step across the threshold, to let the air in. His paintings are portals that loudly declare: “Out!”
Borut Popenko (b. 1969 in Maribor) is an artist with an exhibition career spanning more than 25 years at home and abroad. After completing his studies in art pedagogy at the Maribor Faculty of Education, where he graduated with a thesis on Colour and Plasticity of Form, he studied abroad, first in Halle, Germany, at the Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle (1995/97), where he completed a painting specialisation, then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens (1998/99) as a scholarship recipient of the Greek Government, and finally at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2001) as a scholarship recipient of the Czech Government.
In 2007 he received a working grant from the Ministry of Culture. In 2019, he was a guest artist at the Ministry of Culture’s Viennese residence. Popenko is an important contributor to the contemporary art scene in Maribor, closely involved with the Pekarna Cultural Centre, where he works in his studio. In 2013, he was part of the founding of the Salon of Applied Arts in the former Grand Café at Theresienhof in Maribor’s Main Square, which served as a space for creation, exhibitions, art events and socialising until 2019. His recent exhibitions include the solo shows Openings (2026, Murska Sobota Gallery, 2024, Loža Gallery, Koper; 2023, UGM Studio, Maribor), Prelomi (2019, artKIT, Maribor) and Prelom (2018, Church of the Holy Spirit, Črnomelj), and his work was part of group exhibitions Spekter. 70 Years of the UGM Collection (2024, UGM | Maribor Art Gallery), Structure of the Illusion (2024, Ptuj City Gallery), Omnibus Maribor (2023, Eisenkappel, Austria), The Book Story (2023, UGM Studio, Maribor), Time on the Way (2023, Bažato Gallery, Ljubljana), Colors (2023, Equrna Gallery, Ljubljana), Tiny Geometries (2023, Zuccato Gallery, Poreč, Croatia), GustArt (2022, Pekarna Cultural Centre, Maribor), Fantasy – Geometry: A Dialogue (2022, Novo Celje Manor, Žalec), Made in Maribor II (2022, UGM Studio, Maribor), In the Time of Space (2020, Media Nox Gallery, Maribor), Pop-Upstart (2018, Centre for Creativity, Maribor) and “Auf die Dauer setzt der territoriale Imperativ sich durch“ Zwischen Nationalstaatlichkeit und … (2017, EPeKA Gallery, Maribor). His works are held in private and public collections, including the UGM | Maribor Art Gallery Collection, the Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts Collection, the Pilon Gallery Ajdovščina Collection, the Žula Gallery Collection, the IEDC – Bled School of Management Collection, and the Impol Collection. In addition to numerous solo and group exhibitions, he has also participated in artist residencies and art colonies in Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe.
