Red Dawns and Cafe Open present

exhibition opening with DJane Ganzza

Nina Bric (SLO)

Nina Bric’s style of expression is taken from comic books. Her figures are drawn against single-coloured backgrounds, they are two-dimensional, with strong black contours, and vivid colours. Other times, she puts black-and-white figures against the newspaper-like background, and colours the scene red. In this way, her enframed stylised human and animal figures tell enclosed stories themselves. Her innocent fluffy kittens and bears depict the world of eroticism and violence. Her fluffy animals possess teeth, passionately biting female characters on her pictures. Her drawings explore sexual taboos and gendered and sexualized identities. ‘She-man’ is a passionate red-haired woman, decorated with jewellery, standing somewhere on the gender spectrum, but not being limited by any of the two socially recognizable genders. Her on-the-first-glance trivial painting style is breaking with the taboos of all sorts, and playing with the eroticism and superficial seriousness of chosen themes, which are transcended with playful irony. The latter is possible with the lack of any moral commentary or judgement. Her figures are exactly what they appear to be –affirmatively static in their statements and existence. For instance, her painting ‘Banja’ (‘A bathtub’) depicts two determinate spectators, looking at two women, one of which is pinching a nipple of the other one with her fingers. The image is taken from a 1594s painting, exhibited in Louvre, portraying Gabrielle d’Estrees, the lover of Henry IV, and her sister. Although the painting is not signed (its symbolism was supposed to hide numerous dangerous meanings), the critics believe it belongs to the Fountainebleau painting school. The pinching of the nipple was supposed to represent the pregnancy of Gabrielle d’Estrees. Nina Bric used the motif and set it into contemporary times with the purpose of intentionally robbing it of its subversive meanings and emphasize an independent lesbian statement.

Nina Bric (1984, Šempeter pri Gorici) graduated from Art education at Pedagogic faculty in 2012. She is a painter, sculptor, illustrator, comic books author, the producer of toys and puppets. She lives and works in Ljubljana.

Co-organization: Cafe Open

How to get there (Hrenova ulica 19)