Jasna Kozar: EROTICA

Jasna Kozar: EROTICA
17 July–22 August 2026
MMC KIBLA/KiBela

You are cordially invited to the opening of Jasna Kozar’s solo exhibition, EROTICA, which will take place on Friday, 17 July 2026, at 7 p.m. at the KiBela, space for art.

INVITATION (PDF)
CURATORIAL TEXT (PDF)

At last year’s 14th International Festival of Fine Arts in Kranj, organized under the auspices of the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies (ZDSLU), Jasna Kozar presented a long-standing body of work centered on the theme of eroticism, for which she received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Considered Slovenia’s most “democratic” art prize, the award is determined by a vote of artists’ associations from across the country. In other words, the recipient is chosen directly by the professional community rather than by a (politically) appointed committee.

Eroticism, one of the two fundamental creative impulses embodied in the eros–thanatos duality, has been a constant presence in art. In Jasna’s work, it is a recurring thread that runs throughout her artistic career, including the eight years she spent in India, where vibrant colors infused her visual language with a new intensity. Stylistically unfettered, she moves freely between motifs while remaining committed to the brush and the tradition of easel painting. For Jasna, any constraint on tactile or creative freedom is intolerable. Consequently, the many shifts that define her work, together with her departures from well-trodden paths – including her own – may at first seem surprising. In time, however, it becomes clear that this is simply who Jasna is.

Expressionism, pop art, collage and assemblage, figuration, portraiture, abstraction, cityscapes, and landscapes all find their way into her erotic paintings, which pulse with boldness, confident brushwork, and layered humor. Through them, she casts an “eternal light” into the chambers of our lives, where questions outnumber answers. She does not seek to explain, but simply to show – to turn the image outward, where we may, in one way or another, catch a glimpse of ourselves. She invites a response without ever tempering her inner impulse or restraining her artistic gesture, unconcerned with whether her work soothes us, unsettles us, or simply imbues us with the energy entrusted to her to convey through the medium of painting.

She is the medium herself. She connects us. She builds and transforms, layering the elements of a painting into the desired motifs, refining and reworking them over time. Sometimes years pass before a painting finally comes into being. Eroticism has accompanied her from the very beginning, appearing continuously and consistently – not as a byproduct, but as one of the central threads of her artistic practice, a distinctive artistic credo. It offers all of us a raison d’être, a reason for being, understood first and foremost in a natural sense, but also, if we choose, in an existential one. This becomes especially resonant in a time when neoliberal ideologies, through social engineering, elevate the sociological over the natural, sever human beings from nature, and use them as “guinea pigs” according to methods reminiscent of attempts to create a perfect “Aryan race”.

Biography

Jasna Kozar, MA, was born on March 7, 1952, in Murska Sobota, Slovenia. From 1971 to 1975, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana under Professors Gabrijel Stupica and Jože Brumen, where she also completed a postgraduate specialization in painting in 1977 under Professor Jože Ciuha. In 1976, she held her first major solo exhibition in Slovenia. In 1979, she enrolled in postgraduate studies at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. She returned to Slovenia in 1983.
She subsequently established herself as an independent visual artist. In 1986, she received the purchase prize at the Ex-tempore Piran – International Painting and Ceramics festival, and in 1989 she won first prize at the exhibition Drawing (Maribor Art Gallery).
Since the 1990s, she has exhibited widely in Slovenia and abroad. She furthered her professional development through a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Since 2009, she has worked as a mentor at painting workshops and has led art courses. She also regularly participates in artists’ colonies. From 2009 to 2021, she organized visual arts events as a gallerist and producer at Gallery 3X in the Lent district of Maribor. She is a member of the Maribor Fine Artists Society (DLUM). She lives and works in Maribor.

< Jasna Kozar: Start–end, acrylic on canvas, 2020; photo: Brut Carniollus

MMC KIBLA/KiBela, Ulica kneza Koclja 9, Maribor
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.