Darja Štefančič, artista slovena, ha recentemente partecipato a Bottega ‘500, una mostra d’arte contemporanea organizzata dallo studio di consulenza Tivarnella Art Consulting, in collaborazione con 1758 Venice Art Studio e Associazione Il Sestante, presso la Blue Gallery di Manhattan, New York. Dopo aver condotto i suoi studi in ambito educativo, ha proseguito la sua formazione nei campi della letteratura e della filosofia, formandosi al contempo presso scuole d’arte di differente orientamento, per giungere a uno stile sincretico e poliedrico. La sua ricerca pittorica è esposta in collezioni e mostre internazionali in tutta Europa e in America. I suoi oli su tela raccontano un universo metafisico ricco di rimandi alla simbologia magica del Tardo Medioevo.
What are the reasons that prompted you to embark on your artistic path? Has art always been a part of your life?
For as long as I can remember, i.e. from early childhood, I had a strong desire for artistic expression. The desire to follow the path of a painter matured in me in my teenage years, when I began to deal with painting more systematically and seriously.
What was your first experience in the art world?
The first test was actually an exhibition in the central hall of the gymnasium, in front of the professors’ chamber. The initiative for it came from the professor of art education, the painter Mirko Lebez, who perceived in me a desire to paint and a kind of talent, so we decided to put a selection of my youthful works on display for professors and students. It was quite a large and interesting audience of some 850 students and their professors, just right for the first trial.
Could you identify some references that you feel are akin to your artistic production within a current of art history, or by referring to literary, psychological or philosophical studies?
Oh, there are a lot of them. These are artists and writers who created out of inner necessity, in the desire to find answers and meaning, fought with their inner demons, like those who calmly expressed pure joy in their creations. Most of the authors are from the past or semi-past history, the current time is still a time of chaos and saturation. I especially reach for authors who have stood the test of time and enrich the humanistic aspect of the world with their works. Let me mention only a few of those that come to mind first at a given moment: El Greco, Louis Borges, Fernando Pessoa, Henri Matisse, Simone Martini, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gaugin in their colourful phases, illuminations and medieval codices, De Chirico’s Italian piazzas, Ravenna mosaics, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Aldous Huxley and it goes on and on…there are so many and so wonderful.
Within your works there seems to be a meaning hidden beyond representation. Do you agree with this statement?
During the period of my artistic maturing I carefully selected and limited the set of symbols that are close to me and somehow explain me. However, enigma is certainly present per se. Secrets are often formed and revealed by our point of view, from which we see things. If I ask, for example: “What is the mystery of a ruby?”, and then wait for the answer from a geologist, a poet, and a mystic…I allow the viewer to investigate.
Perhaps during the period of youth and later maturity, I wove messages into the pictures, things that might not have been wise or sensible to say out loud. I looked for an interlocutor, a protector in my pictures.
Over the years, I crystallized my doubts, passions and longings into a kind of prayer, a plea for a better world. I would like to see my pictures caress, comfort, invite the viewer to reflect and transport him/her into the landscape of hope.
How do you find inspiration for your work? How do you select the subject to represent?
My inspiration arises from everything I see and experience, from the world of dreams, from my direct surroundings, nature and also from the world heritage in visual arts and literature. As to my influences – I would rather call them a sense of fascination – they range in all historical periods and different styles, they also reflect in my great preference and love for the Mediterranean and its historical interlacing with the Orient.
I don’t construct or prepare motifs in advance, I don’t prepare any sketches. It’s more of a kind of meditation, spontaneous visualization… Once the picture has been assembled in my head, I record the essential points of the composition on a white canvas with barely visible brush strokes, then the process flows and takes shape and builds up until the picture tells me that the work is finished.
What role does color play in your works?
I am still of the opinion that the strongest means of expression of a painter is color. I enjoy researching color relationships, effects, and also the psychological aspects of colors. I think it is very important to paint exclusively in daylight, because under artificial light the visual properties of some colors change. I have been working exclusively in the oil technique for decades.
Your works convey dreamlike and surreal atmospheres. Could you explain what drives you to represent these places and what meaning do you attribute to them?
As a human being who values beauty and spiritual wealth I am not overly convinced by the present-day mass mentality. It is disputable whether fast results are also better and whether they are not just a product of a certain form of momentary collective euphoria. As far as I can remember, my opinion has been that the accelerated pursuit of goals and material benefits is closely related to man’s lack of freedom. I want to dedicate as much time to a painting as it needs, and I wish that a spectator, when viewing it, can possibly be pervaded by a new sensation, or one that has been suppressed in the depths of his/her sub-consciousness – the call for freedom.
In a way, my paintings are islands of Utopia scattered in an ocean of dystopia.
