Ana Sluga is a visual artist who works mainly as a painter, but also with video and photography. Her painting borrows from the artistic trends of the second half of the 20th century, particularly Pop Art, which is reflected in the characteristic flat shapes, clear outlines and predominantly pure colours, simplification and synthesis of realistic forms, enlarged close-ups, inclusion of patterns and signs, as well as the use of all-purpose tools such as spray paint and, specific to her practice, wall-paint rollers. The Pop Art form adopts a subjective slant in terms of content as the artist explores themes related to identity, personal history, family archaeology, social relationships and everyday situations in her works. A view through this subjective peephole often offers a glimpse of broader social conditions and problems. She usually approaches these issues with humour and (self-)irony, which is why her works are generally imbued with a sense of ease, vibrancy and light, despite their serious themes.
The exhibition presents the artist's latest paintings, selected works on paper from the Passive Torso cycle and a series of prints created in the Hiša kulture print studio. These pieces represent a body of recent work the artist has been developing since 2021. At the heart of these works is the female figure, set against a neutral background, either monochrome or adorned with patterns created using wall-paint rollers. She is clothed and surrounded by objects arranged in illogical, chronologically incongruous juxtapositions, which is further emphasised by the painted collage that obscures the figure in places. Her face is never clearly defined but communicates through gestures and posture. She is clearly caught in the middle of an action or situation that remains unclear in view of the gaps and inconsistencies in the narrative.

In accordance with the above, the paintings are imbued with an atmosphere where reminiscences of an indeterminate, nostalgic and familiar past are interwoven with references to urban contemporaneity, further contributing to the semantic openness and fragmentation of the image. We are therefore faced with a riddle, a kind of visual anagram that we solve by piecing it together with our own associations, memories and experiences. However, the interpretation that results from this interweaving is never unambiguous – as with an anagram, several combinations are possible. Through the process of assembling different combinations, a portrait gradually emerges of a modern woman entwined in a web of social roles and practices, pursuing her profession and ambitions, following her interests and hobbies while also being a housewife, wife, daughter and mother. And if we consider the title of the exhibition for an instant, we also glimpse along the way the portrait of an overworked, alienated and self-absorbed individual of the times, who simply no longer has the time to cultivate deeper interpersonal connections, starting with conversation.

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Ana Sluga (1981) studied Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where she received her BA in 2004 and her MA in 2018. She completed part of her MA studies at the Eesti Kunstiakadeemia (Estonian Academy of Arts) in Tallinn, Estonia. In 2015, she received the Award for Significant Artistic Achievements from the University of Ljubljana. She has presented her work in many solo exhibitions, including Equrna Gallery (2021), Kresija Gallery (2021) and Bažato Gallery (2024) in Ljubljana, and Gallery Jochen Hempel in Leipzig (2024), as well as in numerous group presentations, most notably Crises and New Beginnings: Art in Slovenia 2005–2015 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (2019), Time Without Innocence at Moderna galerija (2021) and The Figurative at Cukrarna (2023) in Ljubljana. She lives and works in Ljubljana.
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