Our Artists

Manja Fürst

I am Manja Fürst, a 28-year-old academic designer of unique items. I graduated from the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts in ceramic and glass design, and I continued my master's degree in art direction and conceptual art in Belgrade. So I can say that I am interested in many branches of art and I always want to try something new. Drawing and painting have been a constant in my work since childhood.

I try to express myself in a wide variety of materials, which I enthusiastically explore in my works. I enjoy contact with them and discover new worlds. Their own worlds. Everything is allowed in them. Everything I imagine and desire. I can do whatever I want. New dimensions are always opening up for me, which I endlessly love to explore and in which I find my way quite well. I deal with my thoughts, emotions, thinking, seeing and perceiving myself and others. With memories, relationships, internal struggles and divisions, with all good and bad experiences.

I often turn to nature. It calms me down and I get ideas from it. Water gives me the most inspiration. Both its peaceful waves and its terrible destructive power. I feel devotion and humility. During walks in nature, I relax, float away, disappear from this world. My imagination opens up without end. I look for forms, connect forms, observe and think. This is where I find my peace and inspiration. I'm at home here.

Nina Koželj

Nina Koželj (1985) works in the field of sculpture, graphics and spatial layouts. "Discomfort and disturbance, unusual behavior and reaction are constants in Nina Koželj's art. They are impersonal provocations on a personal level. One time it blows into your eyes, the second time it whistle, the third time it vibrates electrically when you touch it." All these conditions result in content-clear, concrete (and often humorous) sculptural bodies, where the artistic motif is unequivocal, and the artistic language is often dictated by the choice of material and techniques. Therefore, it is by no means a coincidence that she responded to the invitation to participate in the new collection of clothes Divinebugs, which bear images of insects. Insects are a motif that she has tackled for more than a decade due to interesting content and artistic challenges, her second solo exhibition (Galerija Gorenje, 2010) was dedicated to flies, while in 2020 a giant inflatable grasshopper occupied the Ljubljana Castle. With the grasshopper (which is dedicated to Emma, a girl who loves grasshoppers) her collaboration with the new collection also began, she was especially attentive to the position of the insect on the garment and the witty content it brings.