In the Reflection of Light

If you happen to be in or to come to Slovenia till the end of this year, you are kindly invited to Savin's fine art salon in Žalec, where a visual dialogue between the painter Zdenka Žido and me is on display until the end of the year. The idea for it was born three years ago. A refined result chosen by the curator, M.Sc. Andreja Rakovec, is now on display at the unique historical Savin's House in Žalec. You are kindly invited you to join the dialogue.

From the text of curator Andreja Rakovec: "Between the works of Eva Petrič and Zdenka Žido, a connecting line is drawn - namely a reduced artistic language that builds compositions based on the basic artistic elements of a line and a surface, and the layering of surfaces that create spatial relationships according to the principle of contrasts. In Eva Petrič's photographs, these are within the range of the gray wedge, and in Zdenka Žido's paintings in a reduced color combination of green underpainting and graded coatings in white. For the current exhibition as part of the program Thought innate in Time, Line and Texture, they have chosen works that are in tune to a specific theme in both form and content. Petrič follows the notion of the line as a synonym of evolution, a parable of life that has its beginning and end, is interrupted and refracted, which illustrates deviations that can also be a sign of further evolutionary development. Zdenka Žido, on the other hand, deals with the question of the line as a basic artistic element, refined in a minimalist visual language, the line that forms a surface in conjunction with another line, the lines placed in space, and the line that creates space."

"The artist arranged the photographs in a line that runs through the exhibition space and symbolizes evolution and life. The author points out that evolution is not only straightforward, focused on the perfect and uniform, but it is also marked by deviations and errors. Eva Petrič does not conceive of these as stagnation or deviations of evolution, but as part of it, as modifications that are the driving force of its development. Deviations are indicated by deviations from the base line of the work placement and by the use of materials that differ from those in the load-bearing line of the installation."

"A world of shadows rises in front of us, which the artist mirrors, layers, plays with angles, framing, the use of negatives and the effects of contrasts, and in this way brings them closer to abstract works. It creates a kaleidoscopic view, in which shadows are broken down and merged, forming geometrized patterns on individual parts, as if to capture the soul on its way through the inner labyrinth in which it is that she encounters herself, confronts emotions and tensions. This is especially evident in the mirror-inverted shots in which she seems to be in dialogue with herself. The path through the inner labyrinths is not easy, because in some places the soul seems to get lost, run into, despair, the impression of which is supported by the distortions of the figure as well as its isolation or loneliness as it is always captured by itself. The mentioned state of the soul is well illustrated by the plexiglass Shadow of the Shadow, which seems to capture it in a moment of silent contemplation or Vigilance at her crossroads (off-road?)."

"The gray shades that rule the world of shadows also match the vagueness, the gray color in its position between white and black as the most ascetic color eludes clear determinism, it acts as a non-color, a lack of color..."

"... Contrast on a formal level is introduced by a photographic series created as part of the Shadows and Puppets - Language of E @ motion REacting project in 2010, which also addresses the issue of emotional responses. It was created in a combination of color digital photography on aludubond and black-and-white analog photography of shadows on plexiglass. According to the author, shadows are synonymous with evolution, but because they overlap with color images, these works represent a deviation from evolution or the potential direction in which its development will move."

The shadow / s illustrates to me all that we are,  all that we could still be, all that we have been but have forgotten that we are - A mosaic of different lines that have become a meander and resonate together in different textures.

"For Eva Petrič, the line is a metaphor of evolution, which embraces time as its immanent element, through which deviations from the outlined direction show the possibility of further development, and for Zdenko Žido, the line is a metaphor of time, which reflects development through her work. Motifs remain faithful to pure artistic issues throughout."

Mag. Andreja Rakovec, curator