Nina Čelhar

HOUSE VIII

2018, acrylic on canvas, 160 × 145 cm

Nina Čelhar’s works focus on architecture as the basic human living environment that determines, in its capacity of artificially constructed space, human existence. The fruit of human creativity and productivity, architecture is subject to humans; at the same time it conversely dictates our everyday lives and movements, in a way controlling and directing our very existence. Čelhar’s painterly representations of architecture – both exteriors of contemporary functionalist concrete buildings and minimalist interiors – come across as elaborately refined, abstract, and semantically uncritical images. The artist takes the stand of an observer, scrutinizing spaces in all their details, noting the absence of people, although everything testifies to their presence. Čelhar creates works using the subtle and fragile technique of painting on translucent ungrounded canvas, which indicates also the deliberate testing of the medium and its expressive possibilities and limitations.

Nina Čelhar (1990) graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Art and Design in Ljubljana, where she received the Academy Award for Special Study Achievements. In 2018 she completed her Master's of Arts degree in painting. She perfected her knowledge for a year at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany. In 2015, she received the special ESSL Collector’s Invitation. She has participated in many solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Greece and Finland. Her works are part of several collections (Essl, Imago Mundi, Luciano Benetton Collection, Riko, Miklova hiša, Božidar Jakac Art Museum, University of Ljubljana). Web: https://ninacelhar.com/