"Smooth surface of translucent pieces of paper, overlapping one another, varies with light intensity and creates an anonymous image field. In the 1980s, experiments brought me to design a painting cycle of transparent jigsaw puzzles, paper folds, and watercolor paintings on translucent paper. With a pure geometric line, I limited floating raster of a transparent watercolor. To bypass the convention of a medium, I hung a painting between two sheets of glass, so that the painting stopped being suppressed by a wall. Hence, the painting entered the room, being observable from two different sides. Material is a form of expression, and paper, having the effect of light filter, draws attention to relief structures. Exploring a line, a structure and the transfer of their features from one material to another, came into light a cycle of sculptures, where the line freely extends into various ambient layouts, and is simultaneously embedded in space but is primarily still experienced as a painting.

In its structural variety, paper can be soft, sharp, rough, in short, special. Hence, I have chosen nontransparent paper as a carrier of the cycle of screen printing graphics entitled Spomini (Memories). Floating forms of screens, captured in the whiteness of paper, revealing themselves and collapsing in one another, with a hint of nostalgia, were a consequence of my awareness of time passing. It was a reflection of my inner state, conditioned by facts, without transparency.

In Valovanja (Ondulations), I study the relationship between organic and geometric forms, also in collage technique. I create paintings on the basis of visual thinking, not imitating. I draw and paint on paper, I fold it, wrinkle it, tear it, cut it, glue it. Multilayered pieces of paper give a bigger notion of haptic perception, and have beside that the function of stabilizing painting strokes. Painting the paintings on translucent paper, I feel soft rustling of a brush, touching the surface. Painting on a canvas or foil, when I create with colors and strokes a composition of contrast and harmony of mood lighting, the feeling in me is stronger.

The palette of my artistic expression may seem wide, but is in fact a logical continuation of my preceding work, intertwined with new understandings. But not then nor later have I tackled the question, weather my work was in accordance with time and space, nor have I wanted to create a masterpiece. It was and still is an inner necessity of expression – firstly of my doubts, and later of my lessons learned, with the purpose of sharing my own experience."

—Milena Gregorčič

Milena Gregorčič was born in 1952 in Ljubljana. She attended the School for Design in Ljubljana, specialising in print.
She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and graduated in 1976. Gregorčič then specialised in print with Prof Marjan Pogačnik and Prof Zvest Apollonio and obtained her master’s degree in 1978. She has been a member of the Ljubljana Fine Artists Society within the framework of the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies since 1976. Gregorčič displayed her work at 69 independent and over 400 group exhibitions both at home and abroad. She lives and works in Ljubljana.