Tjaša Iris
Tjaša Iris is a Slovenian-born artist, known for her photographs and large paintings painted with bright colors, vivid atmospheres of gardens with lush vegetation and bright light. Color is the main concern in her painting, exploring its emotional and expressive qualities. Early life. After a year of studying International Relations – Political Science at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, she moved to Florence, Italy, at the age of 18 which meant a new birth for her. She started to study photography and painting at a private art school: International School of Fine Art Fortman Studios, in Via Fiesolana  34r, today no-more existing, where she gained a diploma in 1991. She continued her study of photography at Staffordhaire Polytecnic for a semester in Stoke-on-Trent. Later she continued her studies at Audio-Visual Department at Academie Minerva in Groningen, The Netherlands, where she earned her M.A. in fine arts (painting) in 1995. Career. In 1994 she moved to Treviso, Italy (near Venice) where she got herself her first studio, a 3.5 × 3.5 m room in an abandoned factory where specially in year 1996 she produced a huge amount of very big size paintings. In December 1997  she moved to Venice for seven years. Where besides painting at her home, a primo piano nobile Venetian Palace apartment with painted ceilings at San Marco 2569 she started holding painting workshops in Tuscany, Provence, Puglia and Slovenia. She also worked at Slovenian Gallery and Slovenian Pavilion at The Venice Biennale – Galleria A+A. She spent a winter in Paris at Cite' Internationale des Arts an international artist's residency. On and off two years in Lake Tahoe Area of the Sierra Mountains in California, until she bought a villa in the Branik village, Pre-Coastal Wine Country of Slovenia in  2004. Located ten min from Italian border about an hour East from Ljubljana and West from Venice. In the years 2004–2010 she continued working winters at Cite International des Arts in Paris while one winter she spent in Morocco, studying the colors there. During the years 1996–2011 she dedicated much of her time to her painting workshops. She had workshop participants from all six continents, many of them became her collectors and art patrons. With this unconventional marketing of her work, she was able to work around the usual gallery world at the same time placing paintings into private collections  on all six continents. At Villa Flora her painting went into a full swing. In 2008 she was ready for a higher level of solo exhibitions that later took place in Koper, Slovenia, Singapore, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur, Chiang Mai and Bangkok Thailand. Due to her character of always being attracted by the places where the things are moving, she visited Hong Kong in 2009, Singapore and surrounding countries in 2010, and in 2012. In November 2013 she had her first bigger solo museum show at Chiang Mai CMU Art Museum. The exhibition later moved to Bangkok, to Jamjuree  Art Gallery, an Art Museum of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok was opened until 16 January 2014. During 2013 and 2014 she created over 200 limited edition prints. In 2014 three books were published with Blurb, curated by writer Angela Rosental. Tjaša Iris: Gardens of Eden, 170 Limited Edition Prints of 35. Tjaša Iris: Joy of Nature, Special Editions of 5. Tjaša Iris: Paradise from a New Dimension, Special Editions of 5. From 2011 until 2015 she made Chiang Mai, Thailand her primary home. In 2015 – 2018 she lived a nomadic life traveling between Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. As a  result of it she did more photography than painting. In May 2017 she gathered all her works of eight years and published a book of her photography from years 2009 – 2017 with the title: "Tjaša Iris – 8 Winters in South East Asia – A European Under the Tropics", available at Amazon.com. In August 2017 she had a solo exhibition at BACC Bangkok Arts & Culture Center, one of the biggest art institutions/museum in South East Asia visited by over 1 million people per year, so about 100 000 saw her exhibition of paintings and photographs which was very well accepted.. Work . Tjaša Iris is an exceptional colorist. While in her earlier work there were many landscapes and less gardens in her work of the last ten years we see mostly gardens with lush vegetation. She dedicates most of her exhibitions to these themes. Her earlier work always had origins in Southern Europe, the Mediterranean part of Europe. She loves nothing but strong light and bright colors. Her colors came right from the tube. She is only buying most bright pigments of any brand. Her work of the last three years describe beautiful flowers and lush tropical gardens in bright, vivid, lush  colors. Her paintings are full of a powerful unique energy. Her roots are in Expressionism, a modernist movement in Europe from the beginning of the last century. The movement's typical trait was to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express meaning or emotional experience rather than physical reality. Her work is a continuation of these concerns. Color is the main concern in her paintings, exploring the emotional and expressive qualities. She says: "It is about how colors just come at  you or move away from you." Her colors are used freely and vibrantly. The paintings vibrate with the contrasts of light and dark, bright and dull and warm and cold. She is today more than ever an avid traveler, and she captures the essence of the places she visits in vibrant sometimes more descriptive while sometimes more abstracted pictures. Gardens with lush tropical vegetation and ornaments, busy landscapes with swirling clouds, Botanic Gardens of Singapore, Thai King's Phu Ping Palace Gardens in Chiang Mai, gardens in Bali and Kuala Lumpur, Castello di Miramare gardens in Trieste, located only about  20 km from her Slovenian residency and studio at Branik village... Through her use of color and shape she captivates the viewer with her joyful celebration of life through her art. The explosive energy of South East Asia is making her paintings even more vivid and vibrant. She is also spending much time studying physics, the new studies about what the scientists have to say about the 5th, 6th, 7th ... dimension. Quantum physics. Facts about energy and matter. The fact that colors have waves moving toward us or moving away from us.. Tjaša Iris is continuing in her own research  in color as well as adding the atmosphere of today's world to it. Her paintings on paper and canvas give you the feel of the flatness of a computer screen. Her large paintings on jute add another dimension to it. She is a clear representative of the Internet Generation. Her busy complex compositions reflect the busy loud information era of the fast moving time of today. Her photographs and paintings are a dream world of happy atmospheres, strong light and uplifting lush colors. In this era of economic recession, some call her the anti-depressionist artist due to the  uplifting energy that her paintings emanate. Early paintings. These are paintings of landscapes and gardens she painted mostly in Italy, Slovenia and Croatia. these are more immediate works than the paintings from her later period. Brush strokes are big, fast, very lose, very fresh. Colors are very bright. European Paintings 2005 – 2011. From this period on she dedicates herself to mostly paint gardens with lush vegetation. During her stays at Villa Flora in Slovenia she spends much time painting in the nearby Miramare Castle gardens at Riviera di Trieste (Alberi, Gardener's House). She is as well constantly travelling to  Publia, Southern Italy from where is originating the painting Pezze. To Capri and Amalfi coast (Capri, Palme e Vasi, Entrance). Asian Paintings 2010 – 2013. This is her an even more atmosphere work. It appears like from a "New Dimension". It is detailed and complex. Paintings are from her favorite painting locations in Asia as Botanical Gardens in Singapore, Bali, Thai King's gardens in Chiang mai, Thailand, Hong Kong gardens...