Franc Bester

I am a Slovenian academic artist. My work consists of painting, writing and photography. I also like to walk in nature, in the woods, picking mushrooms and taking photos. The need to confess in literary form often arises, so two books with philosophical content were created, one novel and one collection of poems. I also went into illustration and illustrated seven fairy talesuse. For my painting, I use acrylic on canvas technique. My artistic work is a form of surrealism fueled by dreams, but it would be a mistake to think that they are dreams as such. I take the view that dreams as such are impossible to paint - because they are metaphysical, that is, a spiritual phenomenon (I am talking about visions in dreams), and a painting painted by a painter with a brush and paints on canvas is entirely a material product - and matter cannot be like Spirit.

My area of interest is also philosophy, and so many years ago I came across the philosophy of Kabbalah, and I did not just stick to theory, I tried to know the astral world of Kabbalah through practice, through experience, and I am still getting to know this world through lucid dreams - the astral world is an inexhaustible source of ideas for me.

I am a graduate of the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and also studied physics for a year before. I also studied studied science and philosophy independantly for almost a few decades, which has undoubtedly reflected in my painting.

I have about 60 solo exhibitions behind me. Important locations: town hall in Kranj, villa Bled in Bled, hotel Kokra in Brdo, Lek gallery in Ljubljana, Šivčeva hiša in Radovljica. Of course, there has been a lot of participation in group exhibitions, especially in the last fourteen years, which I actively cooperate with the art colony "Jasna". At the same time, we visited many places throughout Slovenia.