Petra Derganc creates quietly, without much fanfare, but with a lot of feeling. Her graphics and paintings are not and are not created with grand plans or goals, but out of personal necessity, which is reflected in the iconography. Petra's art is a combination of observation, memories, moments from everyday life and subtle distance. As if we were looking at the world with a slight delay, from a place where man has just left, and nature has taken over the space again.
She graduated in painting from the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design, and completed her postgraduate studies in graphic design in 2014. at Rabhindra Bharati University in Calcutta. Despite her academic knowledge, art has often found her where it is not expected: at the kitchen table, in the middle of the living room, in the memory of the scent of Mediterranean bushes, or in an empty swimming pool that seems to say nothing, but hides a story within itself.
Her artistic expression naturally extends between painting and graphic art. Pools, vegetation, silence, traces of man are motifs that constantly return to her works. The paintings often show scenes without people, yet with their presence. As if someone had just left. All that remains are the folded chairs, the shadow under a tree and the open door. Light, details, atmospheres come to the fore, which suck the viewer into the interior of the painting. It seems as if everything has stopped, but somewhere inside you feel that someone is breathing somewhere. You feel an invisible presence.
A special place in her painting is occupied by printmaking, especially linocut. This represents a space for a more direct, almost diary-like expression. She entered it out of necessity, due to a lack of space and funds after completing her studies, but over time it has proven to be one of her most loyal companions. Linocut is that primitive form of printmaking that we learn in elementary school, when they want to introduce us to the meaning of printmaking.
Because of her approach, manner and nature of her work, she seems like a graphic sketch artist. Petra's first linocut, titled Hello, was created as part of her diploma thesis. How appropriate for a start. In her linocuts, Petra records scenes that are close to her: from books, home, the sea, boredom or childhood memories. These little stories on paper are not only technically perfect, but warm, witty and homely. In everyday motifs, the viewer perceives and learns about her own world, full of small, for some even insignificant events and details that she would otherwise not notice in the fast pace of life. Petra's linocuts contain the much-vaunted mindfulness that we all yearn for.
Every graphic, every painting, is a small piece of Petra. It is a reflection of her observation of the world, a memory, a moment that she felt was worth staying. Petra's subtle art is like a silent companion, a tiny reminder of the beauty of the everyday.
You can view and purchase Petra Derganc's works, in giclee technique, here.