Artist Statement

Boris Beja

My artistic practice is characterized by a committed dialog with contemporary social events. In particular, the exploration and observation of phenomena that evoke strong emotional states such as anxiety, discomfort and fear. I am interested in how social crises are located in the structure of everyday life, as well as in the perception of certain social patterns and behavioral systems.

My artistic practice is steeped in various traditions of the neo-avant-garde. It is committed to the conceptual heritage as an epochal attempt at an intellectual development of an art project. This commitment manifests itself formally in a range of different media, from sculpture to drawing, collage, photography and objects. It spans a wide range – from social sculpture to and between various re-articulations of object trouvée, but not within the ready-made tradition, but rather as a very spatial ‘quotation’. The spatial installation occupies a very prominent position among them – as an extension and simultaneous condensation of my formal sculptural qualification.

In the area of my interest and my work, I have been pursuing the examination of pattern and ornament for several years – both on the level of form and content. I use and utilize both pattern and ornament on the surface of the form I am working on. I complement and enrich various materials with different ornaments that either represent a purely artistic (formal) addition or the content that conveys the theme of the project being worked on. The content is usually realized through the medium of the installation. I understand the installation as a complex organism whose life energy I draw from the emotional confrontation that often arises from the content of social issues; these remain one of the focal points of my interest.

With my artistic practice, I want to present my art projects to the public like a dissection of different levels of consciousness, reality and experience, thinking big and not only formally focusing on the medium of sculpture, but building my works in layers and in harmony with different levels – on the level of form and content.

Boris Beja (1986) graduated from the Faculty of Natural and Engineering Sciences at the University of Ljubljana in 2009 with a degree in Graphic Communication and completed further studies in Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Ljubljana in 2013. He has had a number of solo exhibitions and has participated in several group exhibitions. He has received several awards, including the Prešeren Student Award 2012 for sculpture and in the same year the highest award for a contribution to the sustainable development of our society, the Slovene Human Resources Devel – opment and Scholarship Fund. Beja is also active as a critic and curator. In his work, he combines various visual practises into an aestheticized, direct approach with a focus on social criticism. From 2010 to 2013, he wrote articles on culture for the web portal Planet Siol.si. In 2015 and 2016 he was nominated for the OHO Group Award. He has presented his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions. From the beginning of 2014 until the fall of 2017, he worked at Škuc Gallery as an assistant to the artistic director of Škuc Gallery. He has been an assistant professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering at the University of Ljubljana since 2023. He lives and works in Ljubljana.