Art Critics' Choice ...
Lara Jeranko Marconi: Predani, narcise / Devoted, Daffodils

Lara Jeranko Marconi, an academy-trained painter born in Koper in 1984, graduated in painting from the Venice Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia) in 2008. She regularly exhibits her work in solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia, Italy and internationally. She has gained distinction for her technically superb works in the papercutting technique, as well as for her multi-layered, motif-rich iconography, which intertwines plant and animal motifs in a magical blend of reality, fantasy and the absurd. While she initially focused primarily on papercutting, the artist’s more recent works also incorporate other materials and objects from everyday life, as well as drawing.

The exhibition Devoted, Daffodils features works from the Shells cycle (2024) and drawings from the Narcisi series (Daffodils, 2026).

Shells is a series of small, almost miniature compositions combining clay animal figurines, natural shells and aluminium cut-outs. The different materials carry distinct narrative layers. Pierced by shells and cut through, the bodies of deer evoke an individual’s hopeless inner struggle, while a carpet of flowers and other vegetation fashioned from silver aluminium reflects a blend of personal emotions and longings, as well as the social and moral imperatives that shape our existence.

In Lara Jeranko Marconi’s art, Daffodils refers to the Italian word “narciso”, which denotes both a self-absorbed individual – a narcissist – and a spring flower – a daffodil. The series features a group of anthropomorphised animals – wolves – engaged in a ritual as a pack. Only minor details, such as drops of blood or a dead bird, disrupt the calm, solemn atmosphere of the images. The blood-red border, which symbolically represents the scene depicted in the picture and thus forms an integral part of its message, serves as both the physical and thematic framework, unifying the whole.

The artist’s works merge the fantastical with the archetypal, the instinctive with the rational, the brutal with the aesthetic, and individual struggles with collective endeavours. The term Devoted in the exhibition title refers to anyone who, day after day – consciously or unconsciously – devotes themselves both to indulging their own longings and to reconciling those longings with society’s expectations.