Irena Gayatri Horvat

Irena Gayatri Horvat was born in Zagreb in 1968 and graduated from its Academy of Fine Arts under Prof. Miroslav Šutej. On study trips, she has explored many of the world's cultures, translating these experiences into painting and poetry. Alongside her visual art practice, projects and numerous solo and group exhibitions, she has participated in international art symposia at home and abroad. She is a member of ZDSLU and the Kranj Fine Artists Society. Her deeply personal and distinctive visual world grows out of an intense commitment to exploration. Her worldview and artistic practice draw on contrasts between the concrete and the abstract, the secular and the sacred, the visible and the spiritual, light and dark, association and symbol, and on readings of the world's diverse manifestations. She gives expression to her existential, ethical and aesthetic doubts by painting, drawing in pencil or ink, leaving traces on fragile paper, writing thoughts in the ancient Glagolitic script, and keeping a journal of her life. Her work calls attention to the bond between humanity and nature and the profound intertwining of the human and the divine. Her paintings are global metaphors: symbolic realities rooted in primordial human experience. Alongside painting, she has also devoted herself to art therapy and collaborative projects with children and adults.