Ivan Skubin – International Sculpture day
This year, the Sculptors and Artists Section of the Federation of Associations of Visual Artists of Slovenia has joined the International Union of Sculptors to celebrate World Sculpture Day on Saturday, 27 April 2024. International Sculpture Day (ISDay) is a global celebratory event, with more than twenty countries around the world taking part every year since 2015. It is an extension of the International Sculpture Centre's (ISC) mission to promote the creation and understanding of sculpture and its unique, vital contribution to society.
"It is right that this creative profession should be given special attention in Slovenia. That is why we have decided to join the celebration of sculptors and creators who are close to sculpture and landscaping," said the Slovenian Sculptors' Section.
About the artist
The Primorska region will be represented at the World Sculpture Day by the artist Ivan Skubin from Brda, who has a rich artistic career behind him. During his thirty years of activity in the field of ceramics, he has had over one hundred and fifty solo and group exhibitions in Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Portugal, Serbia, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, Spain and France. He has participated in national and international art and ceramics projects, art colonies and workshops. His work has been awarded several times, and he has been selected four times as Slovenian artist in residence at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. He is a member of numerous associations, including the Association of Ceramists of Slovenia, the Association of Slovene Artists' Associations and the V-oglje Institute (member of the IAC). His works are included in public collections in Slovenia, Serbia, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Armenia. At home, where he has his own gallery, he organises creative workshops for children and adults. In 2019 he was accepted as a member of the IAC (International Academy of Ceramics), the highest international professional association of ceramic artists based in Geneva. Last year, he was also awarded by the municipality of Brisk for his artistic achievements.
About the sculpture
On the lawn in front of Vila Vipolže, the artist will present his spatial installation entitled Prisoners. From the windows of five metal beams, human faces, modelled in clay and fired in the special Japanese technique of raku, stare out at the visitor. "Man is a prisoner. With his narrowness, symbolised by faces with grotesque physiognomy, squeezed into narrow openings, he is trapped in a cage of his thoughts, habits, prejudices, emotions... He has embellished and flattened the cage, but he does not know that it is oppressive, it limits his spiritual horizon. The open windows offer the possibility of exit, the possibility of freedom, but the prisoner does not exit. He remains between the stacked walls of his golden cage, staring out darkly and ominously into the world," Skubin explains his setting.