The Circle is pleased to present Slovenian artist Joni Zakonjšek’s first solo show in İstanbul, “How It Is to Be a Heart?”  The exhibition opening will take place on September 14, 2018 at 7.30p.m.

This meditative quality also shapes her technique and her approach to the materials. Giving priority to spontaneous creation, she lets the forms, shapes and colours to naturally appear on the surface of paper or canvas. This spontaneous creation lets her record the latent vibrations in nature and in human mind; by doing so, she not only creates a landscape to look at but a new way of seeing.

The works brought together in this exhibition consist of four groups. The first group of paintings, called “Dervishes,” is the result of her long-term fascination with Sufi tradition, with its poetry, philosophy and music. In 2016 she had the chance of witnessing the rituals in a dervish lodge in İstanbul and in Konya and the sheer ecstasy of dervishes whirling around their own axis like planets moved her into reproducing their poetic vibrations in her paintings. Apart from watercolour and mixed media works, she sometimes uses a specific technique.  She first lets the spilling of tea on rice paper and on this background she then paints the little figures of whirling dervishes.  This technique in itself constitutes a ritual, not just an artistic process.

The second group, called “Circle Poems“ reflects circular, poetic movements found in natural cycle of seasons and elsewhere in universe. These circular “visual” poems are accompanied by haikus written by Vlado Škafar. This poetic interest also echoes her special commitment to the Persian poet Hafez and one of the paintings in the exhibition called “A Poem for Hafez” is a tribute to him. 

The third group, “Tassajara Landscapes“ also reflects her focus on the spontaneous poetics found in nature. In these watercolour paintings she conceives physical landscapes as “the realm of the spirit” or as the reflection of a spiritual gaze. Thus they can be seen as psychical rather than physical images.  The fourth group “Trees” focuses on the meditative effects of trees around the Tassajara Mountain Zen Monastery.

With her sensitivity to poetic aspects of human life and the silent eternal vibrations of nature, Joni Zakonjšek invites you to a journey that may open your heart to new possibilities and change your way of seeing the world.