Excerpt from Simoncic, Damjana. “Painter puts image on view: loving truth more than the glory,…” USA Today June 1996.
Words, written by our greatest poet France Preseren may be paraphrased to gain a deeper meaning and a prophetic grandeur, for example in exhibition of Joze Vodlan’s paintings that were on view during October and November 1995 in the Gallery of St. Cyril’s Church in New York. His newest one-man show is currently on at the Slovenian Cultural Center in Chicago: it comprises of 43 paintings of the last three decades, namely oil paintings and fresco works. This collection will be exhibited throughout the USA and Canada in the future, while the artist prepares for his one-man show in Ljubljana, Slovenia, this coming summer. Opening at the Krka Gallery, Ljubljana, on July 11, at 7pm and closing on September 11, 1996. Joze Vodlan had only very rarely exhibited his paintings during the 33 years of living and working in the USA: he preferred to create “far from the madding crowd” in the intimacy of his own studio. But the time has come and he has decided to reveal the images that reflect his inner self: hidden for so long from anyone who knew him as a successful and promising advertising agent and as a graphic designer. This work of his was very rewarding but it burned too much of his creative energy. There was not much time left for his own artistic expressiveness: his paintings lived only in his own soul throughout that hectic lifestyle. And last year he decided to quit his job and devote all his precious time to art! Only time will confirm the wisdom of his decision… Joze Vodlan is the eight child of Franc and Helena Vodlan and was born in Klenovo by Rimske Toplice, Slovenia. All the children had to work hard on the farm: it was his mother’s sincere wish that Joze take over the place. But destiny had its own plans for him… Already as a child he devoted a lot of his time to admiring nature and its magic changes without any human influences. Deep within himself he sensed a particular gift that gives strength, hope, and answers to numerous questions. His imagination grew more and more vivid as the years went by. It was already in his first drawings that he revealed a magnificent relationship between sky and earth. After hard work of every day on the farm he would sit and draw. The family and friends admired and encouraged his talent: together with Miro Zupancic, his friend from the village, they would sit by the brook, on the hill, behind the house drawing and dreaming about art, their future plans and the vast world- so close, yet so far away…
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Articles on the Artist
- .1.Excerpt from Simoncic, Damjana. “Painter puts image on view: loving truth more than the glory,…” USA Today June 1996.
- 2. Excerpt from Gajsek, Vladimir. “Joze Vodlan Exhibits in the Krka Gallery in Ljubljana.” Slovenec 24 July 1996.
- 3. Excerpt from an interview with the academic painter Joze Vodlan: Stefanic, Bogomir Jr. “I Am Searching For The Light That Gives Inner Happiness.” Druzina 11 Aug. 1996.
- 4. Damjana Simončič: “Artist warmly embraced by his fatherland” Ljubljana, 15. July, 1996.
- 5.Excerpt from Jeraj, Jozica. “1996 Frescoes Retrospection.” Exhibition brochure 1996.