BOGDAN BORČIĆ
Paintings (1982 - 2002)

Born in 1926 in Ljubljana. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana (his professors were F. Mihelič, G. A. Kos, B. Jakac, R. Debenjak, N. Pirnat, and S. Pengov) and finished his postgraduate studies at the same Academy (under Prof. Gabriel Stupica). He mastered his artistic skills during several study visits around Europe, among them in 1958-59 in the renowned J. Friedlaender's atelier in Paris. From 1969 to 1973 he lectured at the painting department, and from 1973 to 1984 at the graphic department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana. In 1979 he was a visiting professor at the Fine Arts Academy in Mons, Belgium. Since 1980 he lives and works in Slovenj Gradec.

He held over 100 solo exhibitions and participated at numerous important exhibitions of graphic arts at home and abroad. Since 1959 he participated at all biennial exhibitions of the International Centre of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana. He won awards there, as well as numerous awards and commendations elsewhere, a major part of them abroad. In 1999 he presented his entire graphic art opus at the retrospective exhibition in Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec, and selections in the Municipal Gallery in Piran (1999) and Municipal Gallery in Ljubljana (2000). In 2000, selections of his most recent painting opus were exhibited in Bežigrad Gallery in Ljubljana and Pilon's Gallery in Ajdovščina. His works make part of important collections at home and abroad, while his entire graphic art opus (809 graphic art works) has been kept in Borčič's graphic art room in Božidar Jakac's Gallery in Kostanjevica (artist's donation). A retrospective exhibition of his paintings created from 1980s (when Borčič moved to live and work in Slovenj Gradec), installed in Art Gallery Slovenj Gradec from 5 July to 8 September 2002, represents a basis for the selection of his works at permanent display - BORČIČ'S COLLECTION OF PAINTINGS.

The continuity of creation - in the fields of graphic arts and painting alike - places Borčič among the most vital Slovene artists - indeed, among those universal creators who have dedicated themselves to the exploration and realisation of fine art ideas at the very edge of the still possible practice of classical painting. In his characteristic poetics, fine art techniques serve as a means of realisation of absolute and harmonious rationality. Borčič's graphic opus forms the core of an energetic body of fine art that, however, would never have been fully realised without the painting segment of his opus. We can say that his opus - painting and graphic arts - originates in a register of objects, but Borčič has transformed it into unique forms (form as logos), in which he searches for the essence of whatever is perceptible. For Borčič, the Art = Intuition equation is not important. More important for him is mathematical order: he depicts structural elements of the visible, all the way to the rationality of the real. We trace abstraction, the process of the transformation of objects in the sense of constructing a whole as the idea of the object, but this is done in the manner of rational comprehension of the world. Borčič's attitude towards actual reality is not founded on impressions from the outside; rather, his decision to depict the structural elements of the visible is conscious, although we can trace the genesis of the abstraction of objects. His spiritual geometry aims to unveil the absolute in painting, and the search for the absolute is a rational life norm. Due to the characteristics of the medium - paper and canvas as bases - Borčič's poetics is grasped within a materialised basis; its limits are form and material. Colours and forms meet on this basis, and the medium dictates the narration of structures of the visible. But it is not the question of contents in the literary sense, for it does not necessarily represent a co-defining element of the functioning of fine (visual) art. In Borčič we can trace the development from the realistic and naturalistic manner of effectuating his fine art visions to the transformation of the gist into a symbol - to abstraction which, however, is not an end in itself. Abstraction merely emphasises the immanence of objects (the existence of something in itself), objects expressed in symbols: Borčič sees objects such as chairs, doors or an atelier (atelier as a spiritual space where works of art are born and which is defined by the artist's special imagery of real and symbolic objects) as signifiers of spiritual space which - one which, however, is also real.
Within Slovene art, Borčič is a researcher, meaning that he has been discovering a cognitive world that is different from the one we usually see: taking a distance from all known representations of the visual is the mode that can bear no superficiality and dishonesty. A study approach and supreme creative potency are the most important factors that preserve the idea in the form of a search for the absolute painting. We can perceive this idea most profoundly when experiencing Borčič's studies of colour: colour has such a power that we could speak about the ultimate experience of colour in the physical and psychological sense, equalled merely by inner intensity of matter, i.e. the structure of its essence. The feeling of movement and depth is also enabled by an intensity of colour, familiar from the chromatic field of Mark Rothko. The refined and subtly woven fine art world into which we enter when looking at Borčič works only strengthens our faith in the power of the body - painting. Therefore, Dr Tomaž Brejc's opinion is no exaggeration when he claims that Bogdan Borčič is one of the most gifted painters of his generation and one whose late abstract style synthesises painting thought that comprises everything that the artist has felt, experienced and finally recognised.

Milena Zlatar