Borut Popenko: Breaks
15. 3. — 3. 4. 2019
X-OP / artKIT, Glavni trg 14, Maribor

The presented works from his most recent creative period are related to the exploration and continuation of a series of paintings dealing with illusory folds, or breaks, in the two-dimensional surface. Through a minimum painting intervention, Borut Popenko inscribes his illusions of the space onto shaped canvases, using subtly premeditated color compositions to create an enigmatic appearance of his paintings, which thus become virtual objects of illusory and imaginary spaces.

After debuting in Črnomelj in June 2018, the series Prelomi (Breaks) is now showing in Maribor. Formats vary, sizes become smaller or larger; new paintings and modes of presentation arise and connect into a spatial installation; colors are added, pictorial fields are placed in dialogs, the painted surfaces come alive. Popenko’s peculiar work in progress is built on a solid concept, which is enhanced through the power of visual language, and re-defined each time with each new exhibition space. Visitors are therefore able to experience a unique setup, visible only now and only here, with the possibility of following the course of future editions, which the artist plans to install in other venues.

Gallery

Maribor-based artist Borut Popenko works with painting, spatial installations and video art. He is an active contributor to the contemporary art scene in Maribor, working, among other, as part of the local cultural center Pekarna magdalenske mreže. After obtaining his BA degree in Fine Arts Education from the Faculty of Education in Maribor, he continued his studies abroad, first at the Hochschule für Kunst und Design in Halle, Germany (1995–1997, specialization in painting), and later as a scholarship holder of the Greek government at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1998–1999), and finally as a scholarship holder at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (2001). Since 1998 he works as a self-employed person in the field of culture. Apart from numerous exhibitions home and abroad, he participated in several art residencies and colonies, in Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe.