Peysage V Painting

JANEZ KNEZ (1931-2011) The painter and graphic artist Janez Knez was born in Dobovec above Trbovlje in 1931. He studied painting at the Academy of fine arts in Ljubljana, where he graduated in 1958 under the mentorship of the professors Maksim Sedej and Riko Debenjak. He went on study tours to Egypt, Lebanon and Paris. He worked for 27 years as art teacher in Trbovlje, before retirement he had the status of an independent artist. Janez Knez takes part in the projects of retroguard groups Laibach and IRWIN. He received the following awards for his graphic and painting work: The Venetian Eagle in Udine, two purchase awards at the 15th and the 17th international graphic biennial in Ljubljana, the Zupancic award in Ljubljana and the Award of the 1st of June in Trbovlje, where he held the title of honorary citizen until his death in 2011. The impressive opus of Janez Knez consisting of more than thousand works does not only witness about the author's outstanding creative force, but also about his deep personal devotion to that sphere of human life which can never be wholly uncovered and in which new challenges can be found despite the numerous years of creativeness. Even the early painting work of Janez Knez was noted by the openness to artistic incentive from the world art centres, acceptance of noble experience of the national artist tradition, accompanied by the will to declare the chosen topics through one's own views and experience. The lively, airy and sunny landscapes revealed the artist's genuine experience of nature as well as his enthusiasm over the possibilities that the colour range offers for the formally unbinding artistic declaration of such feelings. However, the local environment expected above all the painter's contribution to the topic of the mining area which Knez did not experience in the socialist ideological propagandistic variety, but through his personal exsistencial experience. His early mining figures in graphic techniques are thus closer to the pre-war social realism than to the heroical post-war socialist variety. After a short period of abstract action painting Knez started to create a voluminous cycle towards the end of the 1960's, presenting through more than a decade the declaration of his experience of time and childhood memories by means of figure and sign symbolism.