Leon Zuodar is an established painter on the Slovenian art scene, known for his works created in communication with popular culture and, in this context, especially with urban subcultural movements. In creating his works, he employs typical techniques from this environment, such as flatness, palimpsest quality, stylisation, repetition and variation of motifs, use of signs, slogans and sayings, typified figures, etc., which undergo his original treatment and are rounded off into humorous, sometimes ironic or even sarcastic commentaries on everyday life.

In this exhibition, the artist presents new works created in response to his current life situation, marked by changes, turning points and significant decisions. The end of one period and the beginning of another is already suggested by the title – not only through its double form, which reflects the duality of the situation, but also in terms of content, as it can signify both a greeting and a (final) farewell, a beginning and an end, a coming and a going.

The title also reflects the duplicitous notion of the exhibition since it is built around pairs of works that do not form diptychs, but rather a whole in which two separate pieces are placed side by side. They may be linked by a matching motif, a corresponding choice of colours, utilised technique or conceptual design, whereas certain elements, such as the slanted cross or the phrase CIAO CIAO, appear in various forms in most of the works as signifiers of the specific personal background of the exhibition. In general, most of the motifs depicted represent the artist's emblems – personal symbols or signs that refer to specific people, events or things from his life (e.g. a picture from the bedding he had as a child, the brand of car he drove for years, his mother's handwriting, etc.). As such, they are the key to the artist's personal inner worlds, forgotten emotions and intimate stories, to which the uninitiated viewer has no access. Yet despite this, the motifs remain sufficiently universal for every viewer to find something of their own in them and shape their own interpretation.

The artist indicates the distinctly personal nature of the exhibition at the very outset with a series of prints whose central motif is his self-portrait, based on his ID card photo. The self-portrait on each print is accompanied by one of the artist's poems, which were written sporadically during this pivotal period in his life and represent a leap into the unknown within his art practice. By adopting a new form of expression that goes beyond his familiar pictorial medium, the artist suggests that the exhibition is not only personal but also pivotal. Whether this will open up a new creative path remains unclear for now, just as the direction his life will take remains undefined. With this in mind, the exhibition – presented by a twist of circumstances at the end of the calendar year, a time well suited for making pivotal decisions – can be understood as a frozen present, poised on a knife's edge.

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Leon Zuodar (1977) graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. In 2005, together with Miha Perne, he founded the painting duo Beli sladoled and the zine publishing house of the same name, driven by a fascination for unconventional, marginal and experimental drawing. The duo received the OHO Group Award in 2011 for their work. Independently, Zuodar works in drawing, printmaking and painting. In addition to his art practice, he runs the creative programme at the gallery of Hiša kulture v Pivki as well as his own project, Zinko Tiček, in his studio in Postojna.
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