PAINTRESSES FROM THE LITTORAL FROM THE COLLECTIONS OF PIRAN COASTAL GALLERIES

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. 

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

In her painting, Beti Bricelj draws on the experience of constructed and kinetic art, which, in the past century, was characterised as the “last avant-garde” (according to Lea Vergine) and which has recently been experiencing something of a revival. Not only is there growing interest in the world in classics of this direction, but in this increasingly more obvious return to painting, new artists are appearing who build on the rationalistic foundations of structuring artistic statements. Bricelj, too, has dived into the rich artistic and conceptual legacy she considers an incentive for her to think about the personal upgrading of her syntactical paradigms, both on a formal level and in the chromatic sphere.

The modular order she establishes with her images functions as a generator of an “open work” in the sense formulated by Umberto Eco, while the optical-kinetic effect of her paintings highlights the dimension of time instead of the dimension of space, to the gaze more accustomed to the illusionistic perception of the depth of field, dictating an important shift in the approach to a work of art. The concave-convex dynamics of colour alternations creates ever new perceptual combinations, and the viewer is faced with images that are simultaneously self-contained and segments of a potentially infinite whole, into which they can be imaginatively continued.

The painting process practiced by Beti Bricelj is a binding constant in a discourse the syntactic elements of which are connected in attractive visual statements, in which primary colours intertwine with refined warm and cold shades from the repertoire the artist assembles and dissembles anew every time during the construction and deconstruction of forms, optimally coordinated with selected chromatic devices.

Brane Kovič

(Exhibition Text, Gallery of the Ciril Kosmač Library, Tolmin, 2012)

Beti Bricelj (1974, Postojna) graduated from the Arthouse– College of Visual Arts in Ljubljana in 2000. At the invitation of the Australian Government Department for Aboriginal Affairs, Adelaide, she lived and studied in Australia for a year. She has had several solo exhibitions, participated in numerous group presentations in Slovenia and abroad (USA, Croatia, Austria, Scotland, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Israel, India), as well as an exhibition at the renowned American Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, Texas. She has received several awards for her works, which have been permanently recorded in various contemporary art publications around the world. She lives and creates in Postojna and abroad.  

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

Fulvia Grbac (1968, Koper) has long been creating in demanding classical graphic techniques, although she studied painting at the Venice Academy. She continuously researches, plunges into, and experiments in various techniques. Her choice of graphic techniques (wood engraving, dry needle, colography, monotypy), and the shapes and sizes of the matrix and paper on which she imprints are carefully deliberated. The selected medium obviously constantly reciprocally challenges her to discover new expressive possibilities and artistic effects on the impressions.

In terms of content, Fulvia Grbac is dedicated to her place of birth and where she still lives, with its unique atmosphere and light, with centuries-old multicultural and material heritage, in the immediate vicinity of Sečoveljske soline. The experiencing of nature, especially vegetation that constantly changes, transforms, and renews in different time intervals, childhood memories, and daily observation of the salt pans, as well as ruminating on the generations of ancestors who have co-created this special tradition and legacy for centuries, are her main thematic inspirations. A human figure rarely appears on her graphic sheets, in which cutouts from nature prevail. 

At first sight, her compositions are simple, refined, and focused on the central motif of a chosen plant; in the works from recent years, we can observe depictions of a recognisable wire fence, which is in its essence a new border, a new obstacle. Every image of a tree or a thorny blackberry or a wire obstacle is the artist’s metaphor, her iconographic sign as a carrier of her deepest intimate meanings and messages. They reveal her personal attitudes towards the past and the present, towards people and society, her own understanding of political happenings in the present and specific living space.

Nives Marvin

(From the Exhibition Text Contra Naturam, Herman Pečarič Gallery, Piran, 2019)

Fulvia Grbac (1968, Koper) graduated in 1991 in painting from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia). After that, she attended various ceramics courses in Faenza and Trieste. She also took part in a two-year training for architectural restoration, which was organized in Izola by the Italian Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria (Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria). She attended various graphic workshops and courses in Slovenia and abroad, especially in Italy. She is a versatile creator, but she creates mostly in graphics, and she works as an art teacher at the Pietro Coppo Secondary School in Izola. She is a mentor at numerous workshops and other educational projects for youth and adults. She collaborates frequently with the Japanese street theater Kamishibai and at various, including international, art events. She has had several solo exhibitions, and participated in various group presentations in Slovenia, especially in Slovenian Istria, and abroad (Italy, Croatia, Hungary). She has a studio and gallery in Izola and lives in Sečovlje.

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

Lara Jeranko Marconi (1984, Koper) is a painter and illustrator who occasionally supplements her two-dimensional creations with a full plastic language. At a certain stage of her creative growth, she exchanged the paintbrush for “scissors” and papercutting became her characteristic constant. The basic staring point of the “painting with scissors technique” is a drawing, the only difference being that the role of a pencil was assumed by a sharp olfa knife for papercutting.

In a way, her original figural-ornamental transformations, with the intertwining of the plant and stylised animal world, revive the verbose symbolism of late antique illuminated initials, where images and texts were clearly separated. So, too, is the creative process that demands the patience and precision of illuminators as her larger-format works take several months to complete. Lara’s world of floral arabesques and faunal figures is narratively condensed on a colour-neutral surface in a central circular composition, where the artist easily executes a dramatically compact and concise artistic text.

Lara Jeranko Marconi’s work is characterised by an effective fusion of minimal aesthetics and narrative components. These are characteristics which can also be discerned in the work entitled Ikona III. Her filigree woven paper landscapes, inhabited by anthropomorphic animal creatures, are like a kind of postmodern herbarium with a touch of the fantastic. One should not seek unambiguous messages in these images, the categories of logical connections must be brushed aside, and the dimension of an immaterial imaginary world in which symbols rule should be accepted.

Majda Božeglav Japelj

(From the Exhibition Text The Fool, Loža Gallery, Koper, 2022)

Lara Jeranko Marconi (1984, Koper) first graduated from high school Art School Enrico and Umberto Nordio in Trieste (Istituto Statale d'Arte E.U. Nordio). She then studied painting and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia). Particularly significant for her creative growth has been the 52nd Venice Biennale, when she had the opportunity to collaborate with the famous artist Raymond Pettibon. She is instantly recognizable for her papercuts, a special art genre that dominates her creative oeuvre. She has had several solo exhibitions and participated in group presentations in Slovenia and abroad, especially in Italy. She is employed as an assistant at the Department of Visual Arts and Design at the Faculty of Education of the University of Primorska (UP PEF) in Koper. She lives and works in Izola? 

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

The activity of the Primorska artist Mira Ličen (1950, Pula) is broad and multilayered. She continuously supplements the discovering and preservation of aesthetic values of works of art from the past, which the artist realises in her primary restoration work, with her activity in the field of personal fine art creativity. In addition to painting and graphics, the latter includes the plastic experience of creating in wood, ceramics, and glass. The diversity of artistic material and its associated peculiarities determine the choice of motifs. She most frequently manifests her recognisable style in images of landscapes (marinas), still lifes, and, above all, in sacral themes.

The artist often processes in her works the emblematic experience of suffering dictated by sublime stories from Christian motifs with the realisation that the reality of everyday cruelty has not changed in the history of mankind and that dignity of a person can be repeatedly desecrated. Hence, her artistic interpretation of the religious content is a religious drama in blood-red incarnate, the symbolic colour of Christian martyrdom, which in her images preserves the living memory of pain, both physical and spiritual.

In contrast, her still lifes and landscapes, like the painting entitled Regata from 1984, are a whirlwind of explosive colour, where the reality of the space turns into a fantasy image. It becomes daydreaming with open eyes. The allusive image, in which we can discern a turbulent play of waves and the tangle of full sails, is gesturally filtered with a chromatic charge that overtly enters into a dialogue with the viewer’s gaze.

Majda Božeglav Japelj

(Priprta vrata depoja, Gledga l. VIII No 4, June 2010)

Mira Ličen (1950, Pula, Croatia) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana after graduating from the Koper Grammar School. She graduated from the Academy in 1973 and completed her specialization in restoration in 1975. She creates in various genres and techniques: paintings, drawings, prints, stained glass, glass fusions, frescoes, mosaics, ceramics, etc. Since 1973, when she had her first solo exhibition, the list of solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad (Croatia, Italy, Austria, Hungary, France) has become very long. She regularly attends workshops and other art events, including international art events. She is the recipient of the highest national awards (France Stele Award in 1997, Mirko Šubic Award in 2009, ZDSLU Award 2010) and the most important local community awards. She also works as a renowned conservator-restorer and is devotedly involved in cultural activity in Slovenian Istria. After completing her studies, she moved to Piran, where she still lives and works.

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

The paintings of Ira Niero Marušič (1989, Koper) are in their essence expressively biographical. They do not draw from the hypothetical but rather depict small moments, fleeting episodes from the painter’s life that have, most frequently in a positive light, marked, surprised, or/and thrilled her. Regardless of the biographical note, the works are not narrative, they are fragments, tiny, often humorous quotes that subtly hint to the personal moments behind them. Consciously, they remain at the level of a hint and do not surrender themselves to clear narration, thus creating a special attraction and provoking the desire to discover the stories behind them. The paintings demand from the viewer observation, reflection, and some imagination, leaving them free to create many, always subjective, interpretations.

The worlds the artist creates on canvases are timeless, spaceless, and frozen in a state of balance. They are elongated fields of bold, vivid, shimmering colours that give a sense of spreading and overflowing in every direction – including beyond the painting. Minute, occasionally almost imperceptible figures populate the void and bring action into it. They have their own will: despite their smallness (or precisely because of it) and due to the impression of limitlessness, they dominate in the vast colourful landscapes. Their power is sometimes loud, emphasised by a dynamic, almost theatrical and ritualistic gesture, while at other times the figure is barely noticeable – from a distance only a dab of paint standing out from the background, yet on closer inspection it develops and reveals itself, assuming the gaze with its unusual mythical presence.

A recurring thread of extremely economical, clear, even lucid artistic expression runs through all the paintings of this artist, parallel to the contextual conciseness. And although the paintings are playful and often humorous at first glance, they should by no means be taken lightly. The sovereign line and thoughtfulness of the strokes, the tension between the timelessness and vibrating energy of the figures, and the reminiscent nature of fragmented “narration” testify to an extremely sensitive and penetrating painter. Her paintings are a pure love for life and painting process, an unashamedly optimistic vitalism – something that is decidedly lacking in contemporary art.

Žiga Dobnikar
(Exhibition Text Lido, KiBela / KIBLA, Mribor, 2014)

Ira Marušič (1989, Koper) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 2012 after graduating from the Gian Rinaldo Carli High School in Koper. There she continued her postgraduate studies in painting and received her master's degree in 2015. She has been exhibiting since she was a student, since then she has had a number of solo exhibitions, participated in various group presentations in Slovenia and abroad (Italy, Croatia). As an independent creator in the field of culture, she lives and works in Koper.  

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

Majda Skrinar belongs to the circle of renowned Slovenian painters of the middle generation. She completed her studies in architecture and painting at the University of Ljubljana and continued to perfect both of her fields of interest abroad. In addition to numerous personal and group exhibitions, she has also participated in several colonies and Ex-tempore Piran painting competitions where she has been awarded many times. In 2001, at the Piran manifestation her painting entitled Peer received a special award from the curators of the Piran Coastal Galleries, and in 2004, the artwork entitled Afternoon received the award for best watercolor.

In her works, the painter knows how to portray the experiencing of spatial and spiritual peculiarities of the land by the sea in an incredibly sensitive manner. In doing so, she uses landscape motifs from her immediate living environment – selected architectural details, garden sheds, pergolas, terraces or stone courtyards – which over time have been expanded to include picturesque images of seascapes. From direct observation of the real world, she prefers to extract an object that becomes the bearer of the workings of her mind. Then, with her characteristic descriptive stroke on the canvas, she only slightly indicates it, frequently with the painting technique of watercolour on absorbent paper, to create the suggestion of a place through the haze of almost transparent layers of colour. Here, it is key to maintain a balanced ratio between the neutral whiteness of the base and the coloured areas. Despite the fact that using this process occasionally causes the recognisability of the motif to slip into a visually more simplified, schematised image, even some sort of an abstraction, the whole still always simulates the feeling that this is a landscape, which in some images is even able to create an impression of ecstatic bliss.

Majda Božeglav Japelj

(From Priprta vrata depoja, Gledga l. Vl No 2, April 2008)

Majda Skrinar (1963, Koper) graduated in architecture from the Faculty of Architecture, Civil and Geodetic Engineering in Ljubljana in 1990. She received the Plečnik Award for Architecture for her diploma thesis. In 1993, she graduated with honors from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, majoring in painting. In the academic year 1994/96, she studied at the Department of Architecture of the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra) in Portugal. With scholarships from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Soros Center for Contemporary Art, she studied in New York (2000) and Berlin (2010). She has had a number of solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group presentations and other art events in Slovenia and abroad (Italy, France, Romania, USA). She has received several awards and acknowledgements of her work. As an independent creator in the field of culture, she lives and works in Koper. 

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

Joni Zakonjšek (1974, Koper) is one of the most well-established and unique artists of the middle generation in Slovenia. Her painting does not seek initiatives outside its space, in theory and ideas, in the subject matter natura naturata & naturans, but belongs to the inner experience of its own development. Without fashion, without grasping for someone else’s patterns and realisations, it is a dense weaving in the painting’s surface that spreads inside and out, into the depth, and affects with the intensity of a chromatic carpet. The silence of immense vegetation, this sensuous weaving and bubbling, these layers of sensuality and immense spirit, spirituality that now belongs only to painting and calls from the labyrinth of painting to the labyrinth of definition. The screen flickers: we hear the sound of water, leaves, grass, feel the fusion of images… The intertwining of strokes in lush foliage where /only/ the problem of light and dark is in the foreground, which Zakonjšek masters in a mature artistic approach, a kind of undulation, layering, and scattering of coloured clots and strokes, a symbolic projection of concrete signs taken from “nature” which come to life, anew, in spiritual fullness that has no comparison in the real world but only in an artistic image.

The artist and the spectators with her finally surrender to their imagination and are ready for leaps and journeys; to instantly become nomads in body and in the process of the painting. Painting leaves them with “thousands of plains”. Therefore, it is a network of signs that makes the painted objects and “figures” appear fused, although without weight, roots, or foundation; like a butterfly, in flight. Here, we are at the border of figure and voice, where the image absorbs and spews us out. There is nowhere inside and nowhere outside: only a floating in-betweenness, a chromatic blaze of inscriptions and traces. Where every conventional or scientific approach fails. The network of signs is now truly a point of connection and separation; and a fire that burns the matter so that it can bring it back to life once more. Connected with the light, the sun; and muscular – pulsating, half-empty, symbolic, and concrete.

Andrej Medved

(Priprta vrata depoja, Gledga l. X No 3, June 2012)

Joni Zakonjšek (1974, Koper) lived in London for two years after grammar school and studied painting (Foundation Course of Art) at the Whitechapel Art School. In 2003, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and in the same year received the Academy Award for Special Artistic Achievements. In 2019, she was awarded a work scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia. She has had several solo exhibitions and participated in various group presentations in Slovenia and abroad (Italy, Croatia). She has received numerous awards and recognitions for her work. She creates as an independent creator in the field of culture. After a decade of living in Slovenian Istria, she now lives in White Carniola region of Slovenia.