Art Critics' Choice ...
Natalija Juhart Brglez: THIS IS NOT A LOOP

Natalija Juhart Brglez is a graphic artist – by profession and by mentality! While her medium of expression is drawing, she moves within the sphere of the negative and the positive, as well as the paths that connect them: with engraving, line, and point. She gained recognition with the graphic series, done in etching and screen printing, in which she focuses on various cities by distorting and collaging perspective. After Paris and Venice, she explored her native Maribor, as well as Ljubljana. The corners created by the artist among the prominent urban landmarks, including Plečnik's Triple Bridge or Ravnikar's tower blocks, reveal that the city is not a homogeneous, rationally legible whole, but rather an interlacement of memory and gaze – a fragmented and dynamic space.

Our selection features a work begun in 2018, and one that merits being developed further today. The multi-perspective views in the 5 Homes series begin with an intimate story of the artist’s five homes: her mother's, father's, grandmother's, boyfriend's, and the flat she rents. The series conveys the fragility and fragmentariness of living (the artist kept her belongings in her car and moved between her five homes on a daily basis). The homes gradually stitched together, just as Natalija's life eventually did. The tensions, love, charm, nature, and modernism that emanate from them provide an excellent starting point for continuing the technique of stitched drawing today. From here, the personal narrative unfolds in an astonishing range – from the thread of life, mythically anchored in women's hands, to traditional women's chores associated with sewing and canvas.

5 Homes (polyptych), 2018, stitched drawing on canvas, 100 x 150 cm (each)