Apolonija Simon: Unfinished Stories

At first glance, one of the characteristics of Apolonija Simon’s painting appears to be a complex loyalty to the motif, which she has been playing with practically since her very beginnings. Basically, she always remains in the field of landscape in terms of genre, at which this is by no means an image of a “part of nature” captured solely by the eye and even less a plein-air method of catching light moods, for the depicted landscapes are a metaphor for her intimate inner world, her silence, which can also be read as a reflection of the current state of the world. For decades, the artist’s recognisable poetics have been building a space that is on the boundary of the visible and the intuitively comprehendible, which she achieves through abstract art forms. Her abstract landscapes are a frozen space of time, without events – and yet they speak. They speak in the language of light, colour, and compositional silence, which addresses a deep layer of the viewer’s experience. Imaginarily conceived spaces in her work emerge in the constitutive definition of relationships and internal dynamics between the protagonists (human figure and/or tree) in space, the rest is pure painting, typical layering of oil on canvas. The subtle transitions of colours, blurred edges, and floating light create spaces that are not merely landscapes, but imaginary spaces of contemplation, i.e. landscapes that are not outside of us, but within us. The artist understands nature not as an external world that should be captured on canvas, but as an inner space that reflects the spiritual. Every single painting made by Apolonija Simon is thus an invitation to concentration, silence, and a gaze within oneself.

The current exhibition by Apolonija Simon in the former monastery church stems from a similar perception of nature as a timeless space. These are not quotations from the Romantic period, but rather its echoes; in a way, this can be described as a post-Romantic landscape, in which the antagonism between man and nature is absent. The landscape does not represent the world, but its spiritual echo. The viewer is not invited to observe, but to silently gaze and listen to the picture, in which the landscape becomes a thought, a pantheistic prayer or a memory. This is why her paintings do not need a title, since the meaning lies precisely in the absence of a concrete meaning. All that exists is the feeling of the connection between man and the landscape. Not as a relationship, but as a unity. Apolonija Simon’s paintings show a rare artistic alchemy, which connects time, light, and man into a single moment of silence. The works do not tell stories, but stop time, and it is in this silent standstill that the most profound is found. At a time when the world overwhelms us with noise and images, Apolonija Simon’s painting is a precious memory of the possibility of a silent presence. A memory of a landscape in which the spirit breathes through colour, light, and silence.