Iva Tratnik, Staš Kleindienst, Marko Jakše in Mirko Bratuša at the Art Fair Nesvrstani

Iva Tratnik, Staš Kleindienst, Marko Jakše in Mirko Bratuša at the Art Fair Nesvrstani
1–4 June 2023
Lauba – House for People and Art, Zagreb

Iva Tratnik, Staš Kleindienst, Marko Jakše in Mirko Bratuša will present their works at the Boutique Art Fair Nesvrstani (Non-Aligned), which takes place from June 1 to June 4, 2023 in Lauba – House for People and Art in Zagreb, Croatia. You are cordially invited, admission is free!

EXHIBITED ARTWORKS (PDF)

More:
https://www.nesvrstani.hr/en/
https://www.lauba.hr/en/

Archaic Present

Paintings and sculptures. A traditional medium of fine art. Oil on canvas, collage, bronze. Classical materials as the echo of the moment and their own artistic encodings interpret universality through individual poetics, which at first glance may be different, but are connected in their essence and superior, original, unique approaches. Intimistic reflections of nature are reflected in the personal questioning of the relationships that the artist establishes with the world and the environment, whereby the leverage is inherent, internal, emotional in gesture and rational in composition, in the very structure and intense dynamics of paintings and sculptures. Each one opens up its own space and shifts views from the whole to individual elements, from fiction to reality, from the physicality of the materials to the metaphysicality of the depicted.

Opening the caskets of the spirit that not only murmurs but bubbles in these works of art is like discovering treasures, recognizing symbols, looking and seeing, feeling and feeling, assembling and disassembling, accepting and questioning, seeking and finding the paths that are offered to us in labyrinths of the present. The road to the horizon of knowledge is winding and deceptive, mirrors are distorted, rationality is excluded. As with aesthetics, there is a »thing« in ethics. In the primary energies of artworks that play with the medium, in direct confrontations with them and the possibilities of different readings, in their transformative nature of archaic memory in the here and now. Art as a transformation of being and living, both in the existentialistic and the existential sense, by diving into the paintings of Iva Tratnik, Staš Kleindienst and Marko Jakše and the sculptures of Mirko Bratuša, it seems like a transformation of the heart.

Iva Tratnik

Iva Tratnik's art includes many media, painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, photography, video, textiles, installation and encompasses various artistic practices, performance, contemporary dance, theater. When the creative multifacetedness is connected by the eruption of gestures into a whole as a picture, the specifics of the individual elements collage, with drawing, line, color, textile, pass from a static to a dynamic narrative, while the content of the complex design remains delineated and enchanted. Her personal, self-expression transcends the particularity of the medium and becomes universal. With it, we enter the monumental portal of the painting, which embraces us as an all-encompassing installation, in which we can weave the threads of mutual relationships that the artworks offer us through intimate messages.

Staš Kleindienst

Staš Kleindienst, this year's recipient of the Rihard Jakopič Award, the highest award for visual art in Slovenia, says about his work: "In my artistic practice, I focus on social reality and social changes from the perspective of the discourse of power and the role of government. In this context, I try to create dystopian scenarios of social fiction, which at the same time arise from today's ideological, economic and political coordinates. I also try to develop my practice in a direction that relies on imagination as a tool for the potential of different thinking, and not just on a literal interpretation of today's social phenomena. Formally, in my work, I rely on the tradition of Slovenian naive painting, the painting of mass scenes and the American realism of the beginning of the 20th century, as well as some practices of contemporary figurative painting."

Marko Jakše

"It is undeniable that man is essentially a religious being. But not in the existing rigid, false and cruel indoctrinations, but what distills the essence of the good and beautiful in a person. The motivational element of religion must be a sophisticated instrument that helps strengthen or even preserve this precious and abused essence of human existence. Would this save humanity, raise the level of humanity, mutual love? No. But you have to fight, even if it looks hopeless.
And this is exactly how we see Marko Jakše's works of art: as a healer of the human soul, as a translator of the soul in its subtlety and multifacetedness, accepting unbearable pain, as a comforter who directs upwards (and downwards), who shines with art in the dark with the skills of a hearing eavesdropper and a subtle connoisseur, with art, the most beautiful of human activities. His paintings and countless other, ever-new works, distill the good and the beautiful, are the warmest consolation and the most effective medicine. This is the most difficult task that only real priests can do - not self-proclaimed and named ones, but real, rare priests like Marko Jakše. Isn't that the best and most beautiful thing that art can give?" (Aleksandra Kostič)

Mirko Bratuša

As Mirko Bratuša enchants with the magic of the figures, charms with their presence and hits the plexus with the paradoxical and banal nature of being, which is not just an existential idiom or an existential predicament, but as an existentialist reflection that takes place both on the level of the physical and the physical, as well as on the metaphysical and mystical level. And immanently, intimately mythical. His creatures are kind and attentive, but at the same time also depraved and loud, when either on a pedestal they manifestly show off their beauty regardless of their condition, or when they are tightly confined they do not allow themselves to be distracted by ideas about their own greatness and the role they are meant to play in a kind of animated series of different poses, positions and grimaces. An expressive and aesthetic journey from prehistory to the present is established as an identifying point of self-reflection, which we are faced with here and now, on the journey of timelessness. Bewildered, we connect positions and worlds filled with vehement presence and repressed anxiety, searching for hidden and mysterious codes for a miraculous push into a redemptive future.