FORREST SPIRIT, Galerija ZDSLU, Ljubljana, 2013 

With her most recent three exhibitions in Mestna galerija, Nova Gorica, in Srečišče gallery in Celica Hostel and in ZDSLU Gallery, Mateja Kavčič has shown how nature and art have been encountering and supplementing each other in her work, be it in the form of a painting, photograph, land art installation or drawing. I have intentionally mentioned the drawing last as it holds the special function of the link in Mateja’s “forest” works. It is with the drawing that Mateja connects the cuts and gaps that occur in her creative path: during the passage from the arts academy to independent life, soon after graduation; also, she was fostering the drawing in the period of creative uncertainty when seeking a more pristine link with the earth and nature; and she has also used it for the current exhibition to initiate the viewer in the hearth of the city into the colourful blaze of the forest. More than just the line, the drawing is the field where representation and abstraction, the image and void are performed at the very same moment; it is the border that brings together and connects.

In contrast to the majority of contemporary painters of her generation building on images created with machines, from the entirely mundane camera to state-of-the-art recordings of neurological change in human bodies, Mateja Kavčič insists on basing her depiction on nature, where the depiction and the depicted are yet merged into one. Although her depictions are also based on methods like the camera shot, she remains careful not to transgress into manipulation, which has nowadays become almost unnoticeable. There is no more trompe lʼoeil – objects painted so lifelike that they could be taken for real ones – deception lying in wait for the viewer. The temptation is within the creator having the opportunity at any given moment to sacrifice reality to the depiction, the image or plagiarism.

A while ago Mateja portrayed an oak leaf that I brought from Rožnik, for a booklet dedicated to this hill. The portrait of an oak leaf was thus made an ornate initial for the book and for the area – the forest – where the old oak had been growing. Before the book was launched, the oak was cut down, its mighty trunk having been seemingly threatening to the walkers-by. To make the nonsense even greater, they only cut the branches of the oak, whereas its trunk-cadaver was left to mark the entrance into Tivoli, Rožnik and Šišenski hrib nature park, a sad propylaeum of our time. The leaf drawn masterly to the last detail testifies to the tree that is no more, and thereby to the nonsense and ignorance that fails to distinguish between depiction and distortion, between the skills of a master and the poverty of cupidity.

Mateja’s forest is a forest of colour and of relaxed play. There is nothing enchanted in it, only the charm of light shining through the branches, catching in circles of colour reminding of modern times’ George’s shields. There is no shadow of evil hiding behind them; passing is part of the circle of life, it is the announcement of a new birth and renewal. Having left his house together with a rich collection of art and documentation to his nation and to Slovenian fine artists, Fran Vesel believed in such light as was discovered by his contemporaries in the colours of spring, shining in the works of Ivan Cankar, being caught in photographs by Vesel himself – to preserve it not only as depiction but as an act and activity.

Vesna Krmelj

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