Onwards and into the scenes from the New Worlds
Every detectable and experienced shape in the form of humans, animals or objects starts turning into new fantastic shapes and compositions that together create dynamic artistic events. Štefan Planinc has built a very specific and unique world that he recreates times and times again in various scenes, which are concrete and complex. The visible aspect of planet Earth, perceptible, discernible and omnipresent, has a simultaneous presence in the new imaginary world of art with extremely aesthetic characteristics. What we see in his works is, in fact, a path to new worlds, which he often created with fringes of different horizons. As if he wanted to take us along on his journey to the future of his New Worlds. His visions and creations guide us towards new fantastic artwork and the New Worlds.
Miloš Bašin 

Štefan Planinc’s fantastic primeval worlds
Štefan Planinc is a spiritual cosmopolitan, feeling equally at home in his native town of Ljubljana, in the Istrian town of Grožnjan, on study trips abroad, which echo in the painted series, such as the one that was created after visiting Spain in 1986, or in his imaginative pilgrimage to the mountain of dreams on the other side of the world. In the nineties, with a sophisticated bravura, he created a series of light large-size paintings, which glow in their noble intertwinement of associations and they move freely and without any limits along the road disappearing perspectivally on the indeterminate horizon, reaching times, spaces and social and cultural contexts of diverse civilisations. In these paintings, like so many times before, people have petrified into biomorphic creatures or wired robotic homuncles, while animals, too, take on an active role, especially the confidently atavistic image of rhinoceros. In the catalogue accompanying the retrospective of Planinc’s drawings at the International Centre of Graphic Arts in 1999, Zoran Kržišnik wrote that "for Planinc, the powerful rhinoceros… represents an uncontrollable force, which does not pay heed to insignificant laws and aberrations. Because it follows the primordial principle of nature, it only observes instinct … For thhe artist, who has discovered a rollicking child in himself, the rhinoceros is his brother, teacher, perhaps also his ancestor. It guides him along thorny paths towards light and final wisdom”.Particularly in our times, when hardly any value system is still in place, the artist is perhaps summoned again to turn towards and into himself, like Štefan Planinc, and to reflect actively the immediate, commonplace or imaginative, unconscious ambients, as they – sifted through artistic reflection – reach towards the spiritual expanses of human behaviour in the unclear treasure-trove of past ages and awkward visions of the future.
Marko Košan (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška in Slovenj Gradec, 2015) 

Štefan Planinc was born on 8 September 1925 in Ljubljana. In 1948 he took a painting class at the France Marolt Cultural and Artistic Society while working and attending high school. He then enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, graduating in 1954 and completing painting specialisation with Prof Marij Pregelj. He started working at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana as an Assistant Professor in 1974 and became a Professor a decade later. His body of artwork after 1962 was very diverse in terms of techniques and series, among which are the following: Landscapes (1963), Prehistoric World, Roads, UFO (1968), Zoon Politikon (1970), Silfe (1974), Spanish Cycle (1988), New Prehistoric World (1990), Back to the Prehistoric World (1994). In 1965 Planinc received the Prešeren Foundation Award for painting, in 1970 the Župančič Award, and the Jakopič Award in 1984. Moreover, he was awarded three Levstik Awards for youth illustration (in years 1958, 1959, 1963) and also the Hinko Smrekar Award for lifetime achievement (2008), which he was presented with during the 8th Slovenian Biennale of Illustration. One of the most significant recognitions he received abroad is the gold medal from the XIX. Fiorino Biennale, Florence. In 2005 Planinc donated 135 paintings, 271 works on paper and 40 illustrations to the Slovenj Gradec Art Gallery. One year later his donation was turned into an exhibition. More than one hundred books, newspapers and magazines feature his illustrations. He lives in Ljubljana.