Exhibition: Andrej Trobentar - Med nebom in zemljo

Location: Insula Gallery and Plac Izolanov

Organizer: Insula Gallery and Plac Izolanov

Time: 11.00 am

To Izola, where one of the pioneers of the famous "Ateliers for 1 Tolar" once thrived, returns after many years the academic painter and exceptional musician, Andrej Trobentar.

Although he is primarily a painter, more people probably know him as a musician—an extraordinary singer of the band NLP (Na lepem prijazni) and as a singer-songwriter with the excellent album Dar. Andrej Trobentar is a singular figure, sometimes withdrawn in the mountains of Baška grapa, other times omnipresent, especially in the 1970s when he began exhibiting in major Slovenian galleries.

On the occasion of his "comeback exhibition," which he named after one of his songs, Between Heaven and Earth, the curator of the Insula Gallery, Dejan Mehmedovič, wrote:

Throughout his career, Trobentar has explored various stylistic approaches and painting techniques, but he has achieved his distinct artistic identity through works that can be categorized within the field of "abstract coloristic metaphysics." With this scientifically rather undefined terminology, one might capture the most sensitive element of his artistic expression, as it is based on a rational structure such as geometry (a structural pattern) while simultaneously releasing itself into an emotional, irrational (supra-rational) sphere.
In his consistent artistic practice, Trobentar has found his fulfilled expressive power precisely in non-figurative, narratively undefined, and intensely "color-tensioned" compositions. He ambitiously employs compositional syntax, which arises from a distinctive rhythmic arrangement of line-color elements within the pictorial space. The harmoniously structured and dynamically balanced interplay of color surfaces and lines forms a kind of optical framework, which, on a symbolic level, conveys a message through associations.

Andrej Trobentar, Slovenian painter, musician, poet, and educator, was born in 1951 in Šent Jurij na Dolenjskem. In 1976, he graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, completing a specialist painting program two years later under Jože Ciuha. In the academic year 1994/1995, he furthered his studies in Prague. In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked as an art educator in Kočevje. In the past decade, he has been living and working between Baška grapa and Ljubljana.

Written by: Drago Mislej - Mef