Mia Paller works in painting, printmaking, moving images and analogue photography, using the methods of collage, cross-media and visual analogy. The starting point of her work has always been the trace, which she understands as proof that something existed or has taken place, as a track, a direct imprint, a consequence of the ravages of time. She usually comes across these traces in the public spaces of urban settlements, as she walks from A to B on her daily errands. The artist records those that catch her eye by photographing them, jotting down her thoughts, and drawing. These visual diaries serve as a sketchbook from which she draws inspiration for further work. In this sense, she sees her work as an inventory of a particular space-time through the traces of its wear and tear.

In this exhibition, she presents a new series of prints entitled I Walk Until I Reach the Surface. The series was created in Rotterdam, where the artist currently lives and works, and was inspired by a particular neighbourhood called M4H, a former port at the mouth of the Maas River that is now a creative hub where various artist studios and young businesses coexist with industrial production. The inherently creative structure of the neighbourhood is bursting with a myriad of visual stimuli, and the richness of industrial sounds and smells from the sea and river add to its picturesque character. The artist has documented a multitude of these impressions on her daily walks using photography and drawing. She has selected some of the most interesting images to use as inspiration for her prints. Through the creative process, which reflects not only the visual composition of a particular impression but also how it was created (e.g. the basis for the Serpentine print is a photograph of chipped paint on a metal fence; the artist transformed it into a three-colour woodcut that reflects the sequence of colours with which the fence was once painted, using the same matrix for all three colours, from which she cut a little more material each time; the process of making the print was thus reversed, as was the flaking of the colours), a series of abstract images emerged in which the artist captured the pulse of a vibrant neighbourhood, sifted through the sieve of her individual feelings and perceptions.

Nine prints in the techniques of woodcut, screenprint, aquatint and drypoint are presented by the artist in the exhibition. At the same time, she gives the viewer an insight into the process of printmaking by means of the exhibited matrices, photographs and drawings as well as her sketchbook.

---

Mia Paller (1995) received her BA in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and her MA from the Piet Zwart Institute at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, specialising in Media Design: lens-based media. Her work has been presented at several festivals and group exhibitions, including Equrna Gallery (2018 and 2021), Kino Šiška (2021), MGLC (2022) in Ljubljana and Kula Gallery in Belgrade (2022). She has also had solo exhibitions at Hiša kulture in Pivka (2019 and 2021), Layerjeva hiša in Kranj (2019) and Kresija Gallery in Ljubljana (2021). She currently lives in Rotterdam, where she teaches Drawing at the Academy.