Jaka Vatovec is a visual artist of the younger generation who works in the fields of painting, video, installations and publications. His work explores various marginalities at the intersection between the social and the individual. He is interested in social conventions, norms, stereotypes and rituals in relation to the psychology of the individual. Within this context, he is particularly concerned with notions of mental health and normality, exploring the boundaries between the normal and the abnormal as these relate to feelings of alienation, anxiety, nihilism, etc. Another key theme in his work is death as a passage into the unknown and our relationship to it, both in its material and symbolic form. In line with this, he often draws on motifs from the rich iconography of horror in his works, which are teeming with skulls, bones, coffins, candles, spiders, flies and knives. In the creative process, he takes these motifs out of context and integrates them into his works, forming a new whole, where they mutate into something different, their meaning shifting even as their appearance remains unchanged. The meaning often also emerges from the relationships between the works themselves, with their interpretation changing depending on the gallery set-up.

In the exhibition Hide-and-Seek, the artist presents his latest works, in which he deals with the concept of hiding / concealing / disguising. He escorts us into the exhibition with a piece in which the exhibition text is covered in certain places, evoking secret documents.
Displayed alongside it are, on one side, a painting that confronts us with an impenetrable black wall, and on the other, a series of drawings that seemingly "drew themselves" as the artist was sketching. In the main exhibition space, the artist presents a piece that captures our attention with its use of a tarpaulin, typically employed as a cover, now serving as the vehicle for a desolate urban landscape. It prompts us to question the absence of people and to wonder what is about to unfold – or perhaps what has already occurred. A triptych of bizarre photographs with an even stranger title draws us deeper into the unknown. And when we are confronted with a huge mask verging on the grotesque in the last space, it all seems almost sinister. A black painting with the word each, which sounds like a concealed threat, confirms that this is indeed the case. And as we anxiously wonder what awaits us, the wall drawing, the final piece in the exhibition, offers us the only possible answer.

As this quick tour of the exhibition reveals, the artist carefully balances enigma and escalating anxiety to stimulate the viewer's imagination, prompting them to "complete" or newly "create" what is concealed or obscured, charging it with meaning and significance. In doing so, he offers them, quite incidentally, an insight into the far-reaching consequences of the things we hide from ourselves, from each other and from the public, i.e. public secrets and the resulting fantasies about what lies behind them, in personal (divorce, murder, violence ...) and social relationships (censorship, blockades, surveillance, oppression ...). The artist is therefore not fundamentally interested in the act of hiding or what is hidden per se, but in what is revealed as it is concealed and the effects of this process. Similar to the game of hide-and-seek, where hiding comes before seeking. And where the winner is the one who is last – or never – to be found.

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Jaka Vatovec (1989) graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. He has presented his work in several solo exhibitions, including at Hiša kulture in Pivka (2014, 2020), P74 Gallery (2017), Alkatraz Gallery (2024) and ŠKUC Gallery (2024) in Ljubljana, as well as in numerous group presentations in Slovenia and abroad. He has also published several art publications. He lives and works in Postojna.