Andraž Šalamun’s artistic career was varied and prolific. He started out in the late 1960s as a member of the neo-avant-garde group OHO, introducing many new artistic practices, e.g., body art performances and arte povera. In the late 1970s there came a radical shift in his artistic output, as he turned his attention to the traditional medium of painting. Initially he dedicated himself to abstract art, and in the 1980s to figurative painting, becoming a notable representative of New Image Painting in Slovenia. Characteristic of this trend is the diversity of motifs sourced from the history of art, film, music, everyday life, personal memories, and the like.

The most prominent motifs in Šalamun’s oeuvre from this period are animals, in particular the bison. It is a figure that evokes different associations, from the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux to the symbol of the American Wild West. Šalamun’s bison series is vast and in different formats. Most often, the animal is depicted in outline against a colorful background that does not represent any concrete space, but just constitutes a bright, multi-colored backdrop, painted gesturally with thick applications of acrylic paint.

In painting figures, Šalamun thought not only of the representation of the animal, but of the painting as a space for expressing his inner feelings and images. There was thus no clear boundary separating abstract and figurative art in his oeuvre, which made his transition to explicit figuration in the context of New Image Painting (culminating in the image of the bison) quite smooth. In the late 1980s, he then reverted back to abstraction.