Interview with Cvetka Hojnik
O-A: What is art to you? Is creating an urge, necessity or maybe an incontournable, essential way of life?
Cvetka Hojnik: While creating, art becomes an integral part of life. Because of art we look at life from a different perspective, we get another, inner richness. And of course you become wiser and mentally stronger from the exhibitions and presentations.
O-A: What wouldn’t you do without art? What did you discover, achieve with it?
Cvetka Hojnik: Without art I would not be what I am. I became more systematic and studious, minimalistic in my artistic expression. The square and the circle became the main talking elements in my expressions in different compositions, different combination of textures, which are intertwined with the Pythagorean number 10 (1+2+3+4) and the golden ratio.
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O-A: If a person, artist or not, influenced you, what kind of question would you ask him/her?
Cvetka Hojnik: Because art is kind of like a “handwriting “of an artist, it would probably be very interesting to follow an explanation of a psychologist. In the art he could find elements, that were made subconsciously, on an intuitive level. I would be curious to find answers to this part of my art.
O-A: Who or what inspired you artistically; a person, artist, event, experience…
Cvetka Hojnik: My main job is a fashion designer. I have always been attracted to different materials and creating from them. My first works of art were made of discarded, thrown away materials. Even in painting I always come back to discarded materials and combine them on the painting canvas. Always anew I am inspired by Pierre Soulages’s energy and creativity, who is still creating at a venerable age. My respect.
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O-A: What is a vivid memory of a remark concerning your art that got stuck with you?
Cvetka Hojnik: People are used to colourful paintings. Because my art is monochrome, people mostly wonder why the canvases are so empty, colourless. When I explain to them, that we live in a time, where we experience an oversaturation of space that surrounds us, so we feel anxious a lot, my works act like a counterweight, a precious opportunity to shift our focus and gain some time to contemplate.
O-A: What was the most interesting statement you heard about your work?
Cvetka Hojnik: The most interesting and real statement about me and my work is, that I never quit and never give up. Maybe I am too persistent sometimes. Some art critiques compare me with Kazimir Malevič, but emphasize that I am trying to capture a moment, full of emotions, and somehow stop, freeze, save it like a special state of the world. With my inspirational ideas in the creation process I am addressing the viewer to use an emotional perspective.
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O-A: How do you search for inspiration and themes for your work?
Cvetka Hojnik: Inspiration for art comes from everyday life. With the making of the paintings I am telling a story about life’s necessary polarity and through basic understanding I understand various layers of every being. Opposites on parts are complementarity, self-sufficient, but intertwined lives, that are meant to save and inspire each other.
Each work is a material and visual provocation to see the perfection of the intimate being of the individual, his connection and not the division from another human.
O-A: How has your art changed over time? Why?
Cvetka Hojnik: If we look at life from birth till death, we see that humans go through different phases: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age. Each period brings new experiences, a new view on events. Something similar is with art, with creating. Art is a never-ending search for something new, something different. It is research and also an experiment.
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O-A: Are you a synesthet? Have synesthet ever commented on your paintings? How?
Cvetka Hojnik: Sadly, I did not have the opportunity for this. It would be very interesting to read or hear about such comments, to get some insight into my works. Till now most of the comments are from writers and poets. I took part in a realisation of artists books of some poets and also illustrated some paintings.
O-A: What names do you give your artworks?
Cvetka Hojnik: Paintings usually don’t have their own names. But I do make painting cycles, that have a common name and number, so I know where they belong.
O-A: What do you usually talk about with your collectors?
Cvetka Hojnik: With my collector I usually talk about the way I work, the creating, life, goals, wishes. Sometimes I explain the composition of the paintings and what brought me to such a way of creating.
Interview with Cvetka Hojnik; 17.11.2020
