Veronika Ban

Interview with artist Veronika Ban —

 
1. Who are you and what do you do?
Since I finished my master of fine arts in visual arts at Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Italy, I am working as freelancer artist and I am also mother of two girls. Mostly I am painting with acrylic colors on canvas and composing collages. Occasionally I do also videos and sculptures.

“Portrait of Situation No.9”

“Rise up”

2. Why art?
My creativity started in young years while doing my personal diaries, which soon become books full of poetry, collages, images, drawings, thoughts, stories… Since I was a child, I was always creative and I had the necessity to express my thoughts and share them with outside world. I first took part at an exhibition in primary school when my arts teacher chose my painting “Witch in the forest” and submitted it to an international competition where it was awarded and exhibited in Slovenj Gradec (Slovenija). In High School I was also writing poetry and short stories inspired by biographic life and colored with surrealistic imagination. During the same period of my life I went to buy oil colors for the first time and started to paint on canvas. I was also involved in Theatre and Music performances, which brought me a wider point of view what art actually is. I continued getting involved with performance and oil color paintings while I lived in Barcelona for a year before going to study at Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where I started to use acrylic colors and collage as my main artistic technique.

“Always Looking For…”

3. What is your earliest memory of wanting to be an artist?
Well, I wanted to be an actress first, but in that moment in high school, when I went to buy a canvas and colors and started to paint, was actually a moment when I realized, that I want to be a painter.

“Misterious Woman”

4. What are your favorite subject(s) and media(s)?

I am mostly using acrylic colors on canvas. In 2020 I started to paint portraits, but before my main subject was a human society.

“Portrait of Situation No.10”

5. How do you work and approach your subject?
Usually I get the inspiration to create or I get an concrete idea for an artwork. It can be a concrete person or a situation in life to inspire me to start an artwork, then the process is usually very spontaneous und intuitive. When there is a commission work to do, I try to understand first what the customer wish to have and then I combine my inspiration and ideas with it.

“occupy.yourself.first”

6. What are your favorite art work(s), artist(s)?
It is very difficult to say one artwork or one artist as a favorite one. In different periods there were different artists and artwork very important for me, for my evolution and inspiration. As I was young, I got first impressed and influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, and then later on there were modern artists very important for me, like Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Francis Bacon…

“Portrait of Situation No.12”

7. What are the best responses you have had to your work?
Of course the best response is when someone buys the artwork. It means, this someone appreciate my work and wants to have it. But for me, every feedback is very important and interesting. It is so amazing to hear all the different interpretations from people looking at the artwork. Well, once one lady started to cry watching at one of my paintings, cause the artwork created a big emotional reaction in her and this was quite impressive for me.

“experience.bricks”

8. What do you like about your work?
What I like the most about my work is that I can still surprise myself.

“Self Portrait”

9. What advice would you give to other artists?
Be yourself and keep working and do not compare yourself to others. Making art is not like making sport. I like to believe, that we are not in the competition against each other, but we are all working together in the same team.

“Portrait of Situation No.1 – Spiritual”

10. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
As I am a spontaneous person, it is difficult for me to say where exactly I see myself in 5-10 years, but I hope I will still be painting and keeping my creativity.

Veronika Ban

I was born in Maribor (Slovenia) in 1985, after High School I went to live in Barcelona (Spain) for a year, then I decided to study art at Academy of Fine Arts in Venice (Italy), where I gratulated in 2011 in Master of Visual Art. Since 2009 I live and work in Berlin (Germany), where also my both daughters were born. To date I have exhibited and sold my artworks at various art exhibitions, art fairs and art biennials in Slovenia, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Sweden, Serbia, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Argentina, USA, Iran, India, Canada, Japan and South Korea. My work is inspired by life. Of course the contemporary artists often make the problems of their time and their space within it and the society the subject of their work. They question, cajole, discover and provoke. You can find all this within my works, formed through my experiences and the need to create. I believe that the artist is a slave to the need to create and the only freedom is the act of creation itself. Art is sacred but the world is no longer thus. It is full of arguments, paradoxes, destructions, hurry and tears. The artist´s role here is torn between the sacredness of mischievous poetry and the impatience of everyday life that constantly brings new situations and with them ideas and inspirations. As an artist, I am recounting the tale of my life, writing the poem of my discovery and painting my emotions, constantly filing time and space with unstoppable ideas. Somehow I believe artists have no deadlines and no break. They know culture and rules of beauty, but always hiding something revolutionary within them. Art should be a mirror and should give an option of perception to reach the truth about life, however it is colored, personally or politically, whether it speaks about emotions of an individual or about the society we live in.

Veronika Ban

LINKS —

 
Website: www.veronikaban.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VeronikaBanArt
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VeronikaBanArt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veronika_ban_art/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veronika-ban-966a0087/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/VeronikaBanArt
Art Self Portrait Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1WAzk9H1c&t=38s
Singulart Art Gallery: https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/veronika-ban-3699