LAYERING

Solo show
Bežigrad Gallery 1

10. 5. – 20. 6. 2023

IMAGES OF NATURE

Group show (Anja Jerčič Jakob, Tina Konec, Plateauresidue, Maja Pučl, Lucija Stramec, Joni Zakonjšek)

Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška, Slovenj Gradec (SI)

30. 3. – 28. 5. 2023

The exhibition Images of Nature presents a selection of works by Slovenian female artists who approach the depiction of nature in a specific, sensitive way, which is manifested in innovative approaches to the depiction of nature’s segments. The works of Anja Jerčič Jakob, Tina Konec, Maja Pučl, Lucija Stramec and Joni Zakonjšek are characterized by an original blend of painting skill with a contemporary conceptual approach in depicting those dimensions of nature that, based on immersion in oneself and simultaneous absorption in nature, testify above all to their personal, direct and elementary experience of oneness with nature. In a world flooded by digitized images, the works, with their convincing and specific visual language, offer viewers a space for meditative contemplation. Even though they do not emphasise environmental issues directly, their works do immanently reflect the relationship and deep dependence of humans on nature.

Katarina Hergold Germ, curator

VEGETATIONS

Group exhibition (Nika Erjavec, Tina Konec, Tea Kralj, Tilyen Mucik)
Gallery Božidar Jakac, Kostanjevica na Krki, Slovenia (9. 4. – 19. 6. 2022)

Even though numerous civilisations have, during the course of history, managed to establish an apparent division between wild nature and man-made culture, the mentioned distinction is today viewed as forced and skilled. However, nature has always represented an inspiration for culture and art, as these have always summarised its forms, structures and manner of operation. /…/ In her large format drawings, Tina Konec focuses on subtly depicting natural phenomena, which are a part of her everyday experience. The amorphic compositions in her works summarise the irregularities and non-symmetricalness of organic forms, which can be reflected on various levels of the viewer’s perception. In her drawings, the artis depicts actual or imaginary shadows, treetops, and branches, which are so strongly stylised they function as silhouettes. Fragments of plants drawn in great detail remain trapped in the apparent non-space, regardless of the mimetics, even though they are limited by the edge by the drawing. However, they still appear to coil towards their eternal goal – the source of light. Although the artist clings to the most elemental motif in the human’s immediate surroundings, her works are almost dream-like in their appearance, for they present nature outside of the rational frames of perception. The depicted vegetation can become symbolic images of life as such, for vegetation is unconditionally one of the key elements of the human universe.
Miha Colner, curator

EVERGREEN

Solo exhibition
UGM Studio, Maribor, Maribor (10. 12. 2021 – 12. 2. 2022)

Tina Konec’s drawings and video in this exhibition were created during the current epidemic lockdown and isolation, when the artist lived and worked at her home in Oplotnica. Connected with the environment of Pohorje and the local coniferous trees, she created open, evocative images in which we can recognise numerous micro and macro forms or phenomena: wrinkles on the palms, water currents, clouds, hair, mists, fractals, the cosmos, etc. Tina Konec’s drawings are, in fact, not just about coniferous trees; they also provide a glimpse into the world’s hard-to-articulate nature, which occasionally flashes like a golden grain in the turbulent river of contemporary art—into the unfathomable range of being, extending from the deepest roots to the highest branches, rustling in the winds of freedom and inspiration.
Andreja Borin, curator

Exhibition feature:
Maribor Art Gallery  
Newspaper Večer (in slovene)
Contemporary Art / Sodobna umetnost

GLASS CEILING

Group exhibition (Tina Konec, Agate Lielpetere, Sara Rman)
Extended Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia (7. 10. – 5. 11. 2021)

While the time of the global pandemic threw the world of its axle and transformed the familiar everyday life, leading to increased violence towards and sacrificing of women, the current »disaster patriarchy” continues to use the crisis as a means to re-establish control, dominance and the erasure of the hard-won women’s rights. In spite of this patriarchal machine, powered by the current crisis, a diagnosis has long since been established through statistics: within the field of the arts, only 11,2% of all the recipients of the prestigious Prešeren awards have been women, with 82,5% of them working on the stage or in front of a camera. It was the consideration of personal stories and positions of female visual artists from the youngest, post-transition generation – born in the 1990ies, which has also been hit hardest by the general precarization of life, that served as a starting point for the group exhibition “The Glass Ceiling”.
Teja Kosi, curator

Exhibition feature:
Creative Centre Poligon
Magazine Outsider (in slovene) 
Newspaper Dnevnik  (in slovene) 

HOME AND ABROAD

Group exhibition
Gallery Kos, Skyscraper Passageway, Ljubljana, Slovenia (25. 9. – 15. 12. 2020)
Maribor Art Gallery, online (2. 4. – 2. 7. 2021)

The exhibition presents the works of 31 leading artists of all generations, who work in our local space, emanating or escaping from it into the international (art) world. The starting point of the exhibition is a series of graphics (more precisely: graphic sheets) from the end of the 19th century, which show reproductions of well-known works of art. At the time of its creation, the graphic folder served as a transmitter of knowledge, as an interface between home and abroad. Today, in this apocalyptic year of 2020, selected artists have arbitrarily intervened in each individual graphic sheet. A group exhibition without a central theme is an ad hoc response to this intermediate, strangely unpredictable-unmanageable time, when we were all together, but each for ourselves (at home and abroad), and when visual art lived primarily virtually.
Hana Ostan Ožbolt, curator

Exhibition feature:
Umetnostna galerija Maribor

IN THE FOG

Solo exhibition
Ravnikar Gallery Space, Ljubljana (15. 1. – 8. 2. 2019)

With her In the Fog exhibition Tina Konec presents her newest series of works, which follows the progression of one day: it begins with a sleepy January morning wrapped in fog, behind which the sun occasionally shows its rays. This idea came about when the artist was piling art works of larger formats one on top of another. Drawn elements were showing through the paper, creating an extraordinary visual effect. One autumn morning, while observing the fog, a constant companion of those chilly days, the artist suddenly envisioned her future works in the mist, something that had until then represented a visual riddle. In its very core, the drawing preserves the artist’s appreciation and respect for nature, the sensibility of which she captures on paper. With their apparent universality, her works point to the fragility of impermanence. The artist, with a meditative process, portrays a self-sufficient, untamed nature, the diminishment of which will be, due to the ubiquitous concept of perpetual growth and progress, felt by mankind. Both nature and art do not merely represent a place for a privileged withdrawal and respite from reality, but also a gathering place for new ideas, in-depth reflections, values and hopes.
Teja Kosi

More about the exhibition:
Radio Show Proti etru, spet ta dež, Val 202
Portrait in Mladina Newspaper

DRAWING AS AN ORGANISM

Group exhibition (Tina Konec, Maess Anand)
Kibla, Maribor, Slovenia (10. 5. – 8. 6. 2019)

The exhibition is conceived as a conversation between two drawing artists who perceive the drawing as a living organism and the subject of scientific and emotional exploration, which they develop to the point of visual culmination. On display is an oeuvre of drawings created in a traditional, analog way, while still retaining singularity of execution.
The works of Tina Konec are marked, on one side, by her enthusiasm over cosmic creation and her sublime realization of the fragmented nature, and thus of the endless possibilities of the shapes of universe. Her creative starting point is represented by forms which may well be versatile (they are reminiscent of tree trunks or widespread treetops), however, it is only beyond their formal delineation (which is achieved by means of the abstract white, or dark drawing base, without frames, freed from any significance) that they truly come alive. Form becomes tangible, so to speak; enhanced with meditative intuition, it altogether establishes an additional social, in most cases intimate, dimension.
Nina Jeza, curator

Exhibition feature:
Kibla
Newspaper Večer

FRACTAL HORIZONS

Solo exhibition
Gallery Fonticus, Grožnjan, Croatia (23. 7. – 15. 8. 2018)

The artist’s thought process resembles a flow of dream images, its sensory and cognitive experience evolving throughout the art process. Although the things and their states around us are always changing, Tina Konec manages to grasp the fleeting motions and etheric moments in unique artistic forms. These moments are hard to record, submit to technique and materialize. All that would be impossible without artistic will and precise technique from which her art stems. The artist’s visual language reveals the authenticity of the moment, with the kind of perception and understanding that borders on scientific observation.
Eugen Borkovsky, curator

Exhibition feature:
Akademija Art (in croatian)

LINES

Solo exhibition
Bežigrad Gallery 1, Ljubljana, Slovenia (22. 11. – 24. 12. 2017)

Order, harmony and beauty are the leitmotifs of her creations. And this will always be the case.
Art historians have often predicted the collapse of fine art. But Tina Konec is breathing new life into its latest incarnation, which is based on knowledge, wisdom and an awareness of its fundamental values. She isn’t recreating the shapes you may see when looking into tree crowns. She is instead creating shapes which are similar, but are reminiscent of her perception of natural beauty so we can observe them again – but from a fresh perspective. The result are highly aesthetic works of art, created with nothing but pencils. In our new century.
Miloš Bašin, curator

Exhibition feature:
Contemporary Art / Sodobna umetnost