Lucija Stramec / Nesting
Lucija Stramec / Nesting
UGM Šop, Strossmayerjeva 6
23 May–11 August 2024
opening: Thursday, 23 May 2024, 18:00
curator: Andreja Borin
The exhibition in the UGM Shop features Lucija Stramec's works, which she creates by meticulously arranging tiny light strokes on a darker background. In this way, images emerge from the darkness, as if slowly brought to life by light. Nature's motifs are depicted during the hibernation period, when existence is reduced to stasis and bare survival. The undergrowth, decaying leaves, tree trunks, and forest edges are barren and forlorn. Monochromaticity, precise framing, and a muted connection of light and shadow guide the viewer's experience with the artwork. The images breathe through the spaces between the strokes and the gaps that Lucija Stramec crafts in a lengthy and thorough working process. The ascetic motifs, the accuracy of the construction, and the sparseness of the message are complemented by a slightly distant gaze free of emotional excesses, all of which bring the viewer back to the crucial, to the essence that lays dormant beneath the surface of the spectacle.
The artist describes the displayed drawings as follows: "During the creative process, in the interdependence of photography (documentation) and memory (impression), I capture light through the body (hand, stroke) by layering lines—the only visible line on the void of black paper. In the developing cycle, I am intrigued by the sensation of nesting as created by nature in its ecosystem. I envisage a world of decaying skeletons of trees, branches, and twigs, or the transience of nature around us, bearing witness to lives past and future."
Lucija Stramec (b. 1978) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, graduating in 2004 under Professor Zmago Jeraj and earning an MA under Professor Herman Gvardjančič. She has attended artist residencies in Graz (Cultural City Network Graz, AT, 2008), Paris (Cité Internationale des Arts, FR, 2011 and 2015), and Freising (Schafhof—Europäisches Künstlerhaus Oberbayern, DE, 2014). She has participated in various exhibitions at home and abroad and garnered numerous accolades, including prizes at the ZDSLU May Salon (2009 and 2016), the DLUM Prize (2013 and 2023), and the International Fine Arts Festival Award in Kranj (2019). She has been a member of the Maribor Fine Artists Society (DLUM) and The Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies (ZDSLU) since 2008. She lives and works as a freelance artist in Maribor and Muta.
