IVANA BAJEC
Mental Health Walk

June 30 —
September 08, 2023

LOCATION
RAVNIKAR GALLERY
Vošnjakova ulica 4
1000 Ljubljana

CURATOR Piera Ravnikar

TEXT
Eva Simonič

PHOTOGRAPHER
Mario Zupanov

︎︎︎STATEMENT

From crisis to crisis, we hear more and more that we are experiencing "unprecedented" challenges and times of extreme uncertainty, but for Millennials, who have been hearing these phrases for at least 15 years, they are becoming a bit tiresome. How does this generation-defining anxiousness regarding just about everything that feels alienating and intimate, yet so universal, translate into the visual world of Ivana Bajec?

Ivana Bajec's new solo exhibition, suggestively titled Mental Health Walk, is in many ways a product of the Coronavirus era, a so-called Corona baby. At a time when one crisis follows another and people collectively, yet privately, dedicate themselves to improving their physical and mental health, Bajec has created her own, almost satirical version of a walk, which she has translated into the act of painting. This proved to be the most effective break and release of her pent-up energy. The present exhibition, created in the painter's distinctive language and summer pastel colour palette, is a combination of abstract and figurative elements, neatly, almost comic-book-like, bordered. The painter's pared-down paintings, based on the templates of her drawings, serve as a window into her mental and emotional state over the last few years, and thus into the intricacies of our consumption of news, media and wider internet culture in general.

Despite the graver tone of the exhibition's title, the show is anything but a social commentary; it is not a response to or a reflection of current events, but an independent record of the artist's everyday life at a specific moment in time. By merging abstract forms with recognisable symbols from the internet landscape and shared real-life experiences, her paintings celebrate the immediacy and viral nature of online content, while offering a fresh perspective on the cultural phenomena that shape our daily lives. Viewers will recognise themselves and their world in the humorous images. Without delving too deeply into deciphering the images of a dolphin with a red cardboard box, a seagull with a slice of pizza and the iconic Jennifer Coolidge, it is easy to see that the collected artworks are less a reference to the somewhat tired contemporary malaise alluded to in the exhibition title, but rather, in the artist's own words, a redemptive call to "Girls just wanna have fun!”.

︎︎︎ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ivana Bajec (1990) engages in drawing, graphic art, and painting. She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. She has participated in many group and independent shows in Slovenia, Croatia, Rumania, and Germany. Special mention ought to be made of her presentation at RAVNIKAR GALLERY SPACE (2021) and SWAB Barcelona Art Fair, the exhibition Tourettes by Proxy at the House of Culture Pivka (2021), and her part in the group exhibition Art Has no Sex (Ptuj City Gallery, 2022). In her artistic creativity, she prioritizes improvisation, experimentation, and exploration, with her canvases often acting as painted diaries combining abstractions and elusive humorous depictions, sequencing daily impressions, feelings, and fragments. This renders her artistic expression a rather spontaneous and playful one, permeated with witty and sometimes also provocative confessional style.

V sosledju neprestanih kriz vse pogosteje slišimo, da živimo skozi "izzive brez primere" in v časih največje negotovosti, vendar so tovrstne fraze za milenijce, ki jih poslušajo že približno 15 let, že nekoliko izčrpane. Kako se ta tesnoba, ki je zaznamovala generacijo, ki je intimna in odtujujoča, a hkrati tako zelo univerzalna, prenaša v vizualni svet Ivane Bajec?

Nova samostojna razstava Ivane Bajec, pomenljivo naslovljena Mental Health Walk, je v mnogo pogledih produkt obdobja koronavirusa, neke vrste corona baby. V času, ko ena kriza sledi drugi in se ljudje kolektivno, a obenem zasebno, posvečajo izboljšanju svojega fizičnega in mentalnega zdravja, je Bajec ustvarila svojo, skorajda satirično verzijo sprehoda, ki ga je prevedla v akt slikanja. To se je izkazalo za najbolj učinkovit oddih in sprostitev njene nakopičene energije. Pričujoča razstava, ustvarjena v slikarkinem razločno prepoznavnem jeziku in poletni pastelni barvni paleti, je kombinacija abstraktnih in figurativnih elementov, ki so lično, skorajda stripovsko obrobljeni. Izčiščena slikarska dela, ki so nastala po predlogah risb, delujejo kot okno v njeno duševno in čustveno stanje zadnjih nekaj let, s tem pa tudi v kompleksnosti našega konzumiranja novic, medijev in širše internetne kulture nasploh.

Navkljub resnobnemu tonu naslova razstave, je ta vse prej kot družben komentar; ni odziv na ali odsev dogajanja, pač pa samostojen zapis umetničinega vsakdana v specifičnem trenutku v času. Z združevanjem abstraktnih oblik s prepoznavnimi simboli interneta in deljenih izkušenj resničnega življenja, njene slike obeležujejo neposrednost in viralno naravo spletnih vsebin, hkrati pa ponujajo svež pogled na kulturne pojave, ki oblikujejo naše vsakdanje življenje. Gledalec bo v humornih podobah prepoznal sebe in svoj svet; brez da se preveč poglobimo v dešifriranje podob delfina z rdečim kartonom, galeba s kosom pice in ikonične Jennifer Coolidge, lahko ugotovimo, da so zbrana umetniška dela vse prej kot referenca na nekoliko utrujene sodobne tegobe, na katere namiguje naslov razstave, pač pa, v besedah umetnice same, odrešilen poziv k »Girls just wanna have fun!«.

︎︎︎INSTALLATION VIEWS