WHO AM I? Martina Kržiè

1977 Born in Ljubljana

1992-1996 Secondary School of Pre-School Education and Grammar School Ljubljana

1997-2002 University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Education

2002-2007 Famul Stuart School of Applied Arts (Program: Sculpture and Ceramic)

WHAT DO I DO?

What is useful and what is just a sculpture? Where is the border between useful and useless? Where is the border between ceramic and sculpture? Does it actually exist!?!

The word ceramic is usually associated with (useful) objects from our daily life. Sometimes I leave the object with that kind of usefulness, other times I take it away with other form or by adding other materials.

With the inspiration of Mother Nature, which is, with its unrepeated forms and phenomena, my major inspiration, and with the critical comprehension of the environment, where a human being constantly leaves his (many times destructive) stamp, I try to answer the questions that cross my mind. With the very same sources of my inspiration, I try to combine ceramic and sculpture and their distinctive materials (clay with iron, stone, wood, waste material …), useful with esthetic. I wish that upon seeing an object one feels the need to engage other senses: to touch, to listen, to smell. I am interested in how a particular sculpture works in urban environment and how it works in the green silence of forests and meadows.

The mass of the material an its combining enables me a more complete relationship with the world (my world and reality) and with that it erases the borders between the two media.

On the one hand I am fascinated by clay and its endless possibility of transformation: adding and taking away, colouring and different ways of modeling. One models clay by touching and feeling, while it submits itself and follows you.

As a counterpoise to that, I am many times inspired by products of human dwellings. Left behind them are piles of used objects bearing the stories, which are yet not ended. By recycling, those stories get new extensions and dimensions. Here, I am attracted by metal, the solidity of iron, which must be shaped in a totally different way, with force or the touch of fire so that it submits to your wish.

EXHIBITIONS:

2007:

City hall of Ljubljana: Ceramic at Magistrat

-ceramic

Famul Stuart Winter and Concluding Exhibition

-ceramic

Gallery KUD France Prešeren, Ljubljana

-ceramic and iron sculptures

2006:

VII.Extempore Piran: Obalne galerije Piran, Studio Galerija Gasspar

-ceramic

Famul Stuart Concluding Exhibition

-ceramic

-welded and curved iron

-products made of felt

SENSES (LUNG – People’s University Nova Gorica)

-ceramic

-performance on the theme senses

UNDERGROUND CITY

-ceramic mobili

2004:

-welded iron sculptures

-ceramic (sculptures made of clay and natural glaze from the karst soil)

City Museum of Ljubljana: Ceramic in the Past and Today

-products made of clay, baked with the method of primitive baking, pottery with sawdust

Students’ Arena, Student organization of Ljubljana

-primitively scorched pottery

Youth Festival, The Alkatraz Gallery, Metelkova City

-welded sculpture

-the combination of a welded sculpture and a plaster cast

Winter Semester Exhibition at Famul Stuart School

-ceramic

2003:

- Winter Semester Exhibition at the Famul Stuar School: ceramic sculptures