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.
A: But it was this work that gave me existence and I had to take it as it was. All the time I was constantly thinking about my personal artistic creativity and the time permitting I was also painting. During my lifetime I did not exhibit my works very frequently but I have saved every one of them. I never sold my paintings and even today I do not do that very often: this simply is not the objective of my art. I have established my existence, so now I can live and work without selling my paintings. I stick to the principle that I do not paint to live, but that I live to paint.
Q: About your life and work it was written: “Already as a child he devoted a lot of his time to admiring nature and its magic changes. Deep within himself he sensed a particular gift that gives strength, hope and answers to numerous questions. His imagination grew more vivid as the years went by. It was already in his first drawings that he revealed a magnificent relationship between sky and earth.” (Damjana Simoncic, art historian) Is it your creativity consciously directed towards, may we say- God?
A: Yes, everything is directed towards God: my work and my whole life and it is from there that I get my inspiration. This is evident at its best in my paintings: everything is directed upwards into the universe above for this reason I have never painted a non-religious motif. My paintings always reveal peace although in their characteristics they are not strictly religious: but each and every element comes from nature that is infused with divine inspiration.
Q: Something else is typical for your paintings also: most of them have no titles.
A: Yes this is true: I do not like to give these titles to my paintings. My painting process enables each viewer to choose liberally what is the meaning and importance of my work. Everyone has their own vision so in my paintings each viewer may come up with a different experience and emotion. To my opinion the titles somehow limit and burden the paintings and for this reason I decided not to name them.
Q: Seeing your paintings one gets yet another feeling: in them there is something so noticeably Slovenian.
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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.