The work of Suzana Brborović is concerned with themes of dwelling, with a particular interest in the dynamic relationship between our organic existence and the structure of the various systems around us, which the painter explores at the intersection between transience and formation through the passage of time. The complexity of the theme corresponds to the intricate process of creation, distinguished by application and gradual removal of paint layers, the use of different perspectives and views, the interplay of geometric grids, structures and linear drawing on the one hand, and painting with free strokes, tints and shades, on the other.

The paintings produced through this process are saturated with a profusion of visual elements. At the centre are the constructions, which in earlier works (before 2020) resemble complex infrastructural objects firmly anchored in the space, while in the more recent works, they gradually shake off their materiality and float like weightless abstract frames in the vastness of the day or night sky. The constructions are interspersed with coloured fields of organic forms, which are revealed through the process of peeling away the paint layers and loose brushstrokes that draft out a playful colour drawing between them. In this way, the artist brings an organic and, to a certain extent, haphazard quality to her paintings. In her earlier works, this component is completely subordinate to the construction, like its shadow or substance enclosed within it, erupting only occasionally, while in the more recent works, it spills beyond its frame, increasingly covering it and in some cases even completely dominating it. At the same time, the constructions loosen, the individual elements collapse into themselves, disintegrate and dissolve until they finally disappear from the painting altogether.

In her most recent paintings presented in this exhibition, the focus of exploration of the grids and structures into which our existence is embedded shifts from a living environment succumbed by the material, industrial and technological, to the vast world of the spirit in which our thoughts, ideas and dreams arise. In this world, too, there are various constructions (thought systems, ideological constructs, collective illusions, utopias, etc.), but there is much more room for free choices, which the artist emphasises through the potentiated use of the organic and the haphazard in her paintings. The transition to the intellectual sphere, where the boldness of ideas and the power of imagination counteract the rigidity of everyday life, is also symbolically marked by the emergence of the figurative, which, with the exception of a few initial paintings from 2010, has never been present in her works. So we see in one of the paintings the silhouette of a human figure against a starry sky and in another, a detail of a hand reaching for the stars. It is as if the artist wanted to remind us of the contradiction that we are just stardust, but our minds can be a whole universe in thought.

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Suzana Brborović (1988) graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. During 2014–16, she studied Painting as part of the master's programme (Meisterschüler) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. Her work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad, including the Draught project at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (2014), ŠKUC Gallery (2020) and Bežigrajska galerija 2 (2022) in Ljubljana, as well as at the Nova Gorica City Art Gallery (2023). She has also taken part in many group presentations, most notably Time Without Innocence, Moderna galerija (2019) and Returning the Gaze, Cukrarna (2022) in Ljubljana. She has received many awards and prizes for her work, including the Prešeren Student Award in 2012 and the Rihard Jakopič Recognition Award for Young Artists in 2019. She lives and works between Kranj and Leipzig.
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