Jernej Forbici who has been represented by PUNTO SULL’ARTE since 2011. After the great success of his solo show in New York in 2019 and the important group exhibition “The tremendous World I have inside my Head” at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroska (KLGU) in Slovej Gradec (Slovenia)
Let’s begin the journey into Jernej Forbici’s art by reading his general catalogue, Welcome to the final show, published in 2018!
ARTISTIC RESEARCH AND PICTORIAL PROCESS
In the accounts of the painter Jernej Forbici (Maribor, 1980) of his childhood in Strnišče in Slovenia one perceives a sort of magic realism when he tells of his home where the walls were periodically tinged with a light reddish colour caused by the polluting dust carried by the wind, and infiltration caused the water to come out of the taps in the same shade: his home was in fact imprisoned between an aluminium factory and toxic waste landfills. This seems strange if one thinks of the road lined with thick woods and the gentle green landscape that lead to the small town of just over one hundred inhabitants. A short-circuit that is also found in the landscapes that he has painted for more than fifteenyears, from which emerge a disturbing feeling because they present something that is at once very familiar and disquieting.
In many of his works a prevalent reddish colour is present, which embodies memories and past sensations, bringing back on the jute canvas the vivid sensation of those harmful materials (it is the colour of the bauxite) that characterized the everyday landscape of the artist. The most interesting aspect of these paintings is that they are derived by an environmental awareness without however falling into a stereotypical visual imagery of the environmental disaster: on the contrary at a casual glance this melancholic territory could appear cloaked with a lyrical sense. The wheat fields that often appear in the paintings show furrows from ploughing that seem like wounds in the earth and above them everything appears dry and infertile, showing the silent but undeniable consequences of man’s actions on the landscape. These rural visions by Jernej Forbici that albeit begin from a microcosm familiar to him, do not have elements that determine an immediate recognisability, because the painter wants to create an imaginary universe on the subject: his birthplace is a pretext to present a series of ethical amd environmental reflections on the geological age of the Anthropocene period representing instances of global scope.
Abstract from the text curated by Carlo Sala, for the exhibition Welcome to the final show – Auri sacra fames in 2017.
Jernej Forbici was born in Maribor (Slovenia) in 1980. He studied at the College for Visual Arts of Ljubljana. He graduated with honours in Painting (chair Prof. Carlo Di Raco) at the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, then specialising in Visual and Performing Arts. Since 1999 his works were chosen for many solo and group exhibitions in Europe, USA, Canada, Argentina and China. His works also belong to various public and private collections. The exhibition Genesis, in 2002, was his first solo show. He was invited to Biennials: Hicetnunc, Pordenone (2003), IBCA International Art Biennial in Prague, German Pavilion (2005), Accade, 51° Biennial of Venice (2007), 53° Biennial of Venice, Italy Pavilion – Academies (2011). In 2009 the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice organized a retrospective of his works at the Magazzini del Sale, curated by Carlo Di Raco. In 2011, after having published his first monography In my place and presented five retrospectives in Italy and Slovenia, he was invited to take part to the exhibition Il fuoco della natura in Trieste and, in the same year, he made his debut at PUNTO SULL’ARTE with the exhibition NaturAzioni.
In 2012 he won a scholarship from the Slovenian Ministry of Culture and was invited in London, where he studied the English masters. In 2013 he presented various projects in Italy and abroad, most notably Stop of Burn with us at the Nuvole Arte Contemporanea in Montesarchio, Last Flowers at the Bianca Maria Rizzi Gallery in Milan, and Letzte Pflange at the Kro Art Gallery in Vienna. Sleep now in the fire at the Prostor Epeka in Maribor, Blurry future at the European Court of Auditors in Luxembourg (both in 2014), Everywhen at the Romberg Gallery in Latina and Nothing is yelling at you at the Officinadelle Zattere in Venice (both in 2015), Landskip at the PUNTO SULL’ARTE Gallery, and Phytoremediation at the NuovoSpazio Arte Contemporanea di Piacenza (both in 2016) are only a few of his solo exhibitions where Jernej Forbici presented the development of his pictorial work and of his personal artistic research. In 2017 he realized among others, the project Auri sacra fames curated by Italo Bergantini and Gianluca Marziani at Romberg Gallery in Latina.
In 2018 Galleria PUNTO SULL’ARTE presented his recent works in the solo exhibition Welcome to the final show and in 2019 his works were exhibited, for the first time, in New York for an important solo show, Long Gone, at the art gallery Hugo Galerie (NYC). Furthermore in recent years he has been invited to participate in numerous collective exhibitions. His works are present in many exhibitions, fairs, institutions, and collections. He lives and works among Kidričevo, Ptuj (SI) and Vicenza (IT).
ART & FASHION
The artwork Blurry Future by Jernej was acquired by French brand Aventures des Toiles for their 2016 prêt-à-porter autumn/winter collection design. Silk foulards are available in our art gallery.
