Paintresses from the Littoral from the Collections of Piran Coastal Galleries | 

Meduza Gallery, Koper, 31.01.2025-13.04.2025 | 
Curator: Tatjana Sirk | 

Opening: Friday, 31 January 2025 at 6 p.m.

The exhibition presents seven paintresses from the Littoral from different enerations: Mira Ličen (1950), Majda Skrinar (1963), Fulvia Grbac (1968), Beti Bricelj (1974), Joni Zakonjšek (1974), Lara Jeranko Marconi (1984) and Ira Niero Marušič (1989). Their works – mostly paintings on canvas, complemented by watercolors and graphics –were acquired by the Piran Coastal Galleries through regular acquisitions, awards at the Ex-tempore Piran and donations. Since the smaller exhibition space of the Meduza Gallery dictated the selection, some artworks were unfortunately  left out of this exhibition: paintings by Barbara Čižmek and Arelena Zakonjšek, works on paper by Aljoša Križ, Klavdija Marušič and Katja Smerdu, and ceramics by Tanja Krstov, Kristina Rutar and Nataša Sedej; The sculpture by Gail Clair Morris is, as the only artwork by a female artist, included in the group exhibition Miscellanea, stories and artworks from the depots of the Piran Coastal Galleries, which is simultaneously on display in the Loža Gallery In Koper. Among the selection of female painters and sculptors in the collections, we certainly miss female artists  who work in the field of increasingly popular and established intermedia art practices.

The exhibition does not delve into individual artistic expressions and authorial, personal poetics. Its common denominator is gender and status in the collection, and above all belonging to the coastal area from which the artists originate from  and in which they create. They are not only recognizable in their home environment, but are all already well-known and established names who creatively shape the Slovenian art space and are often seen in reference group exhibitions at home and abroad.

This presentation, modest in terms of the number of authors and works, clearly shows the great absence of female artists in the collections of the Piran Coastal Galleries and points to the still too large gap between the pronounced presence of women in the art scene in recent decades on the one hand and the modest share of their works in the public collections on the other. If there were indeed fewer female representatives in this field until the 1990s, and therefore this was the reason for the absence of their works in the collections, it is incomprehensible that even later, with the success of younger female artists, their representation in the collections of the Piran Coastal Galleries did not improve much. Nevertheless, it is an encouraging fact that the planned acquisitions have recently been focused on women's art and are gradually filling a long-standing void in the collections. 

← 

Lara Jeranko Marconi, Icona, 2018, cutout, 100 x 70 cm, Visual Artists from the Littoral Collection

→ 

Fulvia Grbac, Contra Naturam, 2019, xilography, 34,7 x 34,7 cm, Visual Artists from the Littoral Collection

← 

Joni Zakonjšek, Unfinished poetry for Hafis, 2004, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, International Ex-Tempore Piran Painting Collection

→ 

Majda Skrinar, Molo, 2001, oil on canvas, 50 x 80 cm, International Ex-tempore Piran Painting Collection

← 

Mira Ličen (Krmpotić), Regata, 1984, oil on canvas, 90 x 130 cm, Visual Artists from the Littoral Collection

→ 

Beti Bricelj, GeotransFormA, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 200 cm

Ira Niero Marušič, Dirty water, 2017, oil, pigments, wax on canvas, 160 x 300 cm