ROMEO STUBELJ

In 2003 he graduated from the University of Maribor, Faculty of Education, majoring in art pedagogy under Prof. Otto Rimele. In the period 2004-2021 he was employed as an art teacher at a primary school, but for the last four years he’s been mainly working as an artist.

Stylistically and formally, Romeo’s art flirts with the Pop Art period, which is also explored in detail in his thesis. He is highly in tune with the collage technique, the subject of his research work. Collage appears in various forms; from the classical two-dimensional, as an art piece, video, useful object, all the way to conceptual designs and installations. His inspiration flows from architecture, fashion, design... from popular culture in general, often blurring the line between design/practical and (exclusively) artistic in his works, where transitions from the artistic to the useful and vice versa are common and desirable. The present three-dimensional collages/objects are created from fragments of discarded or used, mainly printed media. From such non-painting material, abstract compositions are assembled in which the artist plays with the elements inherent in the building blocks: colour, shape, texture, materiality... integrating their contradictions into effective wholes. As mentioned, the development of collage has led the artist to create entirely useful objects, including upholstered chairs. Like the collages these chairs consist of used or scrap materials (parts). With the various interventions or additions, they each speak to us with their own unique story. Romeo Stubelj is all about giving new life to things thrown away by the consumer, overlooked or paid little attention to, in new forms, in new contexts.

Showcase: Romeo Stubelj has been working mainly in prints (intaglio) between 2010 and 2018, and in 2012 participated in an international printmaking workshop in Urbino (Italy). In the same year, he exhibited his graphics at the Prints and Impressions at the International Centre of Graphic Arts (MGLC, Ljubljana). As a student of the printmaking master and mentor, he presented his graphics at the exhibition Bojan Kovačič and the School of Graphic Arts (National Gallery Ljubljana, 2019) and as a member of the Association of Art Educators of Primorska, at the Lokar Gallery in Ajdovščina (Unveiled Views, 2021). In mid-2019, he shifts his interest to collages and all that follows. His first such works were presented during the pandemic in a virtual exhibition with an international cast: Dialogs 2020 - Contemporary Connection Project. A more extensive body was showcased in a solo exhibition in Sežana; Bargain Buys (Kosovel Cultural Centre, 2022), and in the following year the Remains of Stories exhibition at the art incubator Alma Medana. He also had solo exhibitions at the Media Nox gallery (Maribor, 2004) and the Frnaža gallery (Nova Gorica, 2007) with the projects Pop Flirt and Pop Flirt 2. Other solo exhibitions include the group exhibition Vabljeni (Invited) at the DLUM gallery, and The Paganini of Typography – Workshop by David Carson (Maribor, 2002), followed by the Venice Photowalk by David Wilson in 2016. In 2023 his chairs were presented at the Ljubljana Ambience and Home Plus fair in the “Top Ideas” section. Romeo STUBELJ lives and works between Ajdovščina and Vrtojba, occasionally still teaching, lecturing and leading creative workshops.