Premio Combat Prize

After my formal academic education I started presenting an explicit interest in the treatment of the local psyche and the exploration of the personal history of female ancestors with archetypical views of death and initiation rituals within the catholic context. In my works I was trying to note down how women understand themselves and their history - opposed to the cultural prejudice of women they perceive this as mainly physical, by means of initiation rituals, by giving birth and by dead children. Furthermore; exploration of feministic topics in contemporary space and time led me to a transition from installation to painting - transferring the content and concept of my previous installation work into painting.
I would place my paintings somewhere in between the beauty and the cruelty of fairy tales – on a stage in which a heroine is existing in an atmosphere inhabited by animals / birds. I am fascinated in a childlike way by the metaphors concerning eroticism and death. The result is painting - screenshot from dark and long forgotten fairy tale. Through the painted figures I try to evoke imagery that was brought to our childlike mind through fairy tales, horror movies, etc. The fairy tale in this way represents a central narrative and depicts a world which is exclusively a world of female characters. They are confronting us with their almost ”pathetic” posture that puts the viewer in a place between the desire for a beautiful painting - stereotypically attributed to women artists – and cruelty, grotesqueness of the real world as a male presence.
The content in my latest paintings is not straight forward - the images appear like feelings that come during reading an old book – as a folk fairy tale, full of witchcraft, girlish erotic fantasy, disguised incest and monsters… Female characters with covered faces and embraced within alarming situations are offering views of the unusual chauvinist oriented world. Positions of the bodies are not generic, better yet they are reminiscent of the violent situation and delusions.
The scenery in my work is deliberately mirrored and repeated so as to bring forth their inner compositional structure to coincide with the heroine’s feelings of repetition, abuse and rape and to set a stage where the work confronts and engages a never-ending story.
TINA DOBRAJC: Curriculum vitae
Born in 1984 in Kranj, Slovenia.
Currently living and working in Škofja Loka, Slovenia.

Education:
2011 – Master degree in painting at the Academy of fine arts Ljubljana, University in Ljubljana, Slovenia
2007 – Graduated in the field of painting at the Academy of fine arts Ljubljana, University in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Solo Exhibitions:
2013 – »Nonfavoloso mondo favoloso« , Libreria Triestina/ Trieste Library, Trieste, Italia
2012 – »Deposed/Exposed«, Art Factory, Majšperk/Ptuj, Slovenia
2012 – »Ilustracije« (»Illustrations«), Fo.vi Gallery, Ptuj city theatre, Ptuj, Slovenia
2011 – »Wunderkammer«, Ivan Grohar Gallery, Škofja Loka, Slovenia
2008 – »Melanholija nekega peresa«, (»A feather’s melancholy«), Gallery Herman Pečarič, Piran, Slovenia
2007 – »Izpovedi«, (»Confessions«), Velenje City Gallery, Velenje, Slovenia
Selected group Exhibitions:
2013 – »Veliki črni bik, koga kličeš« (»Big red bull, who are you calling?«), EGURNA Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2013 – »Mladi avtorji – veliki formati« (»Young authors, big formats«), Galerija S, Ljubljana, Slovenia
2012 – »La belle peinture est derriere nous« (»Beautiful painting is behind us«), UGM Maribor, Slovenia
2011 – »ESSL art award 2011 / nominees exibition«, Moderna Galerija Ljubljana, Slovenia
2010 – »Inter-actions« (»Med-dejanja«), Miklova hiša Gallery, Ribnica, Slovenia
2010 – »Art stays 2010 / Loška Kronika«, Art Factory Gallery, Majšperk/Ptuj, Slovenia
2008/2009 – »The painting is female« (»Slika je ženskega spola«), Riko Debenjak Gallery, Bovec, Kanal ob Soči, Slovenia

Awards and recognitions:
2012 – Won first place for best art work at international Ex-tempore Ptuj 2012
2011 – ESSL Art award 2011, nominee for international Essl art award
2008 – Won a recognition for second placed artwork at XVII. Velenje Colony of Academy of fine arts’ graduate students, Velenje
2007 – Award for best art-work at International Ex-Tempore, Piran, in the category for young artists