1993 – 2004

“When my abstract phase played itself out I returned to portraiture, the most complicated task a painter can get. I decided, to start anew, from the beginning. I studied the concept of symmetrical painting in perspective (Kate Moss). I started to paint in color realism just like I saw older colleagues after the war on the Academy of Fine Arts. I was very curious about the portraits of a hunter by Luchas Cranach, with simple drawings and a warm color scale, Hogarths The Shrimp Girl and beautiful painting of H. Matisse. Here were also my professors, Stupicas portrait painting (L. Menaše, M. Pogačnik, M. Kraševec) and his idols El Greco, Goya, Velasquez, Soutin, Modigliani, Kokoška. Other inspirations were exquisite sculpture portraits of my study colegues (Jelisava Čopič, France Mihelič, N. Omersa, R. Debenjak) under mentorship of professor Zdenko Kalin and suggestive extremely minimalistic portraits of Branko Ružič.”