Drawing is Petra Varl’s fundamental and all-encompassing means of expression. The schematic, almost cartoon-like figures, defined only by the line, which make up the portraits of family, friends and other acquaintances from the real and imaginary world, do not stand alone, as they seek the mental and physical space of context and communication and frequently and unobtrusively populate all available walls of interiors or the large surfaces of jumbo-posters in urban exteriors. The liveliness of the clean color coloration, which fills the interspaces of interlocking contours in a pronouncedly flat and yet logical manner, brings the images close to pop-art aesthetic. In her motifs of "family and domestic life" many would tend to see an essential expression of the author’s feminine character analogous to the feminist cause. But her images are so full of life energy and warmth that they can in no way be interpreted as engaged statements of examination of contemporary social contexts despite the ever present dose of (well meaning) irony. The directness and sincerity of these works underline a singular "joie de vivre," full of cheerfulness not usual for the prevailing temperament of Slovene authors.

Marko Košan, Drawing in Slovenia II, 1940 – 2009

Links to works:

• Family portraits