New university European faculty of law - Exhibition of paintings by Sašo Vrabič: In the cloud (2024)

The exhibited series of paintings by the versatile artist Sašo Vrabič, titled “In the Cloud,” offers an insight into the artist’s subtle yet discernible contemplation on human nature and its significant connection to technology. The format of the presented paintings mimics the shape of standardized smartphone screens. Unlike the artist’s other recognizable works where technology is directly depicted alongside the ambivalent human, this series leans towards the perspective of his habitat—nature, urban environments, underwater impressions, and dreamy clouds. Despite the visual absence of digital components, technological attributes, and the medium’s classical painting form, the series “In the Cloud” appears as a reproduced, virally filtered consumer content.

The depicted mountain landscapes, views of the sky, sunsets, roadside rest stops, and momentary underwater glimpses of weightless bodies originate from the artist’s photographs. Some works subtly incorporate collaged East Asian newspapers, while others feature contrastingly colored frame edges. All the paintings share carefully painted, thoughtful inscriptions that elevate the series’ content and iconographic analysis to a more complex and conceptual level. The selected fonts of various sizes at the bottom edge of the paintings function as recognizable subtitles describing sounds. In paintings where a melody is indicated in the subtitle, it is surrounded by a musical note symbol, while other sounds, such as buzzing, beeping, human noise, or animal calls, are placed within square brackets. They function similarly to television series and films, where subtitles inform the viewer about ambient sounds alongside speech. Each painting in the series thus gains an additional dimension of sound, which often completely transforms its atmosphere and alters the seemingly simple content.

The works are marked by a multi-layered continuous ambiguity. This is expressed through the subtitles, already evident in the multifaceted reading of the artwork. Even if the eye perceives calming, timeless underwater movement of human bodies in blue hues, the suggested contradictory sound of an annoying computer beep forces the viewer to imagine the soundscape while looking at the painting. This can easily change the experience of consuming the painting; a carefree vacation on a turquoise coast turns into an unsettling, anxiety-filled office occupation, a night visit to a rest stop gains a dark touch of a genre computer game, and a flock of playful birds is unnaturally stripped of any chirping or wing flapping. In many cases, it is challenging to determine whether the atmosphere of the painting is meditative, relaxing, and peaceful or simultaneously frightening, enigmatic, even menacing. Ambiguity also manifests through the painted subtitles, which, while meaningful, carry refined visual qualities in the chosen typography. The decision to write them only in English simultaneously alludes to the real, English-oriented globalized world, where Slovenian language shamelessly fades and is entirely absent in digital content. The mixing of English and Slovenian occurs in the ambivalent titles, which are very imaginative, sometimes humorous, and sincere. The title “Terra Bites,” for example, refers to the computer unit for expressing data quantity, while also hinting at a potential Earthly bite. Similarly, the works “Vladimir’s Forest” and “Positions of Power” bring a concealed hint of environmental disasters, war, and cosmic invasion through their seemingly ordinary titles combined with subtitles and imagery.

Individual fragments of figures testify to the stories of absolute anonymous individuals. They are joined by majestic mountains, oceans, and endless skies. At their core, the artworks remain unburdened, imbued with calm energy, pleasing color palettes, and relaxed fragments of subtle nature. Each painting is a separate ambient frame that comes to life with the prescribed sound in a vibrant hum, vibration, and tingling. Embraced by timelessness, they simultaneously convey a distinct emotional charge, melancholy, and growing unease, even depression. In their escapism and connection to technological impulses, they cautiously address the human fears of the modern world. The series “In the Cloud” thus demands gradual contemplation of each painting; the beauty of nature reconciled with the passing of time defined by white noise, muffled sounds, tranquility, and endless farewells. The rounded content of an imaginary final vacation thrives in the form of aesthetic frames, following the system of an addictive online streamer, allowing for endless cheap enjoyment of artistic lyrical content.

Maša Žekš

About the author

Sašo Vrabič (1974) graduated in painting in 1998 and earned a master’s degree in printmaking in 2001 from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. His most expressive works comment on the nature of contemporary information society and the dynamics of interpersonal communication. As an author, he has participated in numerous curated art events. His works are included in public collections such as MG+MSUM, the International Centre of Graphic Arts and the Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia in Ljubljana, the Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts in Slovenj Gradec, the Maribor Art Gallery, the Velenje Gallery, the Nova Gorica City Gallery, the Dolenjska Museum in Novo Mesto, the Imago Mundi collection of Luciano Benetton (Italy), and the World Bank Institutional Art Program (USA). He engages in painting and other forms of visual and sound art. He is represented by Gallery Y.