Barbara Kastelec: Invisible Companions

Ivan Grohar Gallery
20 July–18 September 2022

Curator: Boštjan Soklič

Painter Barbara Kastelec has been systematically and cyclically researching, artistically developing and revealing the hidden interconnections between the micro- and macrocosms for years. With her cycle of recent circular paintings exhibited at the Ivan Grohar Gallery, she returns to the content and themes halfway between art and documentary depictions of the ecosystems of interconnected soil organisms. The exhibition titled Invisible Companions is the third act of the artist’s conceptual project related to the exploration of universal primordiality spanning several years. It offers an insight into the networks of “invisible sources of life” that are essential for human existence and also establishes continuity with the artist’s painting cycles titled Seeds, Pollen and Plant Cells, created between 2012 and 2020. In terms of the content, the multimedia exhibition consists of two main sections (Life: Slime Bacteria and Life: Penicillium), complemented by drawings that show the initial stages of the artist’s creative process in a straightforward way.