Location: Slovenia
Visual Artist
Between Earth and Silence
Andreja Panič Omahna is a Slovenian visual artist whose sculptural paintings bridge the material and the meditative. Working with raw earth, hand-sifted soil, plaster, and natural pigments, she creates tactile, textured surfaces that evoke the atmosphere of ancient ruins, sacred architecture, and silent memory.
Her ongoing series, The Mysterious Past, explores forgotten architectural forms—arches, portals, windows—not as literal depictions, but as symbolic thresholds. These works invite introspection, offering quiet spaces for reflection, stillness, and emotional resonance. Deeply rooted in ecological awareness, Andreja avoids synthetic materials and embraces natural elements that ground her work in sustainability and impermanence.
Andreja studied Painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, under Professor Andrea Granchi, completing four years of graduate research focused on materiality, symbolism, and poetic space. She previously graduated from the State Art Institute Enrico e Umberto Nordio in Trieste, and later expanded her studies into pedagogy and andragogy at the University of Maribor.
Her artistic journey began early, shaped by her father, Dušan Panič, a self-taught artist and stonecutter. His lifelike portraiture and hands-on craft instilled in her a deep respect for manual work and artistic authenticity. She also draws inspiration from surrealist artists such as Magritte, Dali, and Escher.
After a long creative pause, the global pandemic marked her return to art, culminating in a joint exhibition with her father in 2021. Today, she lives and works in Lucija, Slovenia, where she continues to create works that speak in silence—layered, earthy, and quietly enduring.
My art is a dialogue with silence—an exploration of what remains when time has passed, function has faded, and only form is left behind.
I am drawn to architectural fragments: staircases that lead nowhere, sealed windows, ancient arches. They are not monuments, but vessels—structures of stillness that carry memory. I do not aim to reconstruct history, but to honor its quiet persistence.
I work with natural materials: earth that I hand-sift, plaster, glue, and black acrylic. These are not merely tools, but collaborators. The earth is not metaphor—it is substance, history, and trace.
My paintings are not illustrations. They are spaces of presence—sculptural, textured, and contemplative. Each one a threshold between what was, and what still resonates in silence.
http://www.andrejapanic.com/
Her work is based on three main elements: space, substance (material), and light effects on it.Though, how is the space presented? For Andreja, space is an infinite element, unlimited, often indefinite, yet possible. It relies on the Surrealists, the works of Magritte (spatial concept) and Salvador Dalí (visions from the subconscious).With a passion for architecture, she follows clean geometric shapes (lines), strictly perspective construction, with clear, precise, almost incised lines. In her compositions, stone is repetitively used as main material. A cold, soulless (lifeless) element, yet imprinted with movement, at times hovering or swirling, which invigorates the substance and imparts characteristics that are completely contrary to its natural properties. Movement is staged by invisible forces that transfer, move and push objects in a given direction.But, does this movement achieve any goal? Does it lead in a specific direction? Of course it does. The goal is always present, even if it’s hidden in the fog or lost in an infinitely distant focus of perspective which is a predetermined point.The goal is like a light at the end of a tunnel, a solution... A parable of life? A quest for answers to eternal questions? Of course. For Andreja, painting is like a window with a view of the infinite. Her search leads to a conclusion that we are not capable of determining the beginning and/or the end of things, nor are we able to determine the reasons for their existence – all of that is visible in her constructions.Let us now try a closer analysis of some elements of her work:Earlier I mentioned the concept of infinite space – indeterminate but possible – I think this is well presented in most of her works, especially in the representation of consecutive doors. They open one after the other, allowing us to look into new spaces which keep confusing us anew – there are no clear boundaries. Constructions are often dispersed (exploded) or floatingin the air, entangled in a movement whose direction is difficult to determine.In this series of works, some works are also developed in three-dimensional terms, taking on the appearance of low and high reliefs, thus expanding the concept of spaciousness.One more thing to be analysed is the effect of light. Andreja uses strong, bright light, which very precisely defines the forms and the substances which make these forms. Light has a suggestive meaning as well – with its intensity (or intensity of colour) it emphasizes momentsand different life situations. Changing light can produce a phase or situation, such as the light at the end of a tunnel, or the absence of it at the end of a well, which may or may not be a presence, a hope, a solution or a failure.One last thought: shapes…
These can also easily be understood in a figurative sense. She focuses on elementary solids: the cube, the pyramid and the sphere. For each of these bodies, she also gives us an insight into its empty interior. What does she want to say? That the body is nothing but what it presents? Or is it an invitation to it’s interior? That we shouldn’t stop with the exterior of the objects, but should try to experience their depth; that we should trying to get past their appearance and get inside of what is hidden from the eye.
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http://www.andrejapanic.com/
That a vision is a subjective act is a verified and generally confirmed fact. Whoever is watching, usually sees not with the eyes, but through the vision that materializes in the brain, in the seat of our intellect. It could easily be an act – a sterile, objective, unanimous; in short – not lent to interpretation; the same for everyone. But it is the mind, imbued with all our feelings, passions and experiences, which uses a “filter” to distort the lens through which we see our image of reality.With this set of photographs, Andreja wanted to show the mechanism of the subjective aspect, using various filters which hide the human body and prevent direct view, but still allow the observer to predict the shape. A bedsheet, wrapped, wrinkled, wet – rather than glass or natural materials – has replaced, or, in other words, suggests a veil which is the same subjective filter everyone carries within and uses unconsciously when watching.The second element of the view is unquestionably light, since without it, no perception wouldbe possible.Here, light was used as a tool to rediscover, hint, confuse, or hide the forms used, with an almost Flemish inspiration (the memory of Ingres and Caravaggio), playing with gentle and gradual transitions, from a dazzling white to completely black shadows. The tool – light – creates an image as long as the conscience filter captures it.Since 2009, her research on “veils of consciousness” has evolved from a two-dimensional photographic expression, including a three-dimensional plane with some plastic parts. In the sculptural works “The Unconsciousness of Life,” the Unknown Image, the Invisible Grip, assumes the concept of the “veil of Maja”, which subtly prevents direct contact with the true essence of the object, bringing it to a wider sensory level, not only visually, but on a tangible path to exploring the perceptual subjectivity of the complete sensory sphere (sight, touch, hearing, smell).
Photography
Photography
Sculpture in glas of natural elements
http://www.andrejapanic.com/
Four elements
from a series of glass sculptures
glass, glue, wood, plaster, acrylic, foil
70 x70 x 25 cm
from a series of glass sculptures
glass, glue, wood, plaster, acrylic, foil
60 x 60 x 32 cm
About the Series – The Mysterious Past
Misteriozna preteklost is a series of sculptural relief paintings created from natural materials—primarily raw earth and hand-shaped plaster. Each work serves as a quiet meditation on architectural fragments that hold the memory of time. Rather than depicting specific locations, the series evokes archetypal forms—arches, portals, windows—that act as symbolic thresholds between the external world and inner stillness.
By using earth—a material that carries both life and history—the artist roots each piece in authenticity and tactility. The raw texture suggests age and erosion, while the sculptural use of plaster adds depth, encouraging not just visual engagement, but physical and emotional response.
The series is grounded in environmental consciousness: created without synthetic pigments or coatings, each piece honors the integrity of its materials and the impermanence they represent.
The Mysterious Past explores themes of memory, spiritual silence, loss, and connection. These are not narrative scenes, but atmospheric fragments—spaces for quiet reflection and an intimate dialogue with what is no longer visible, yet still deeply felt.
“The time”
“INFINITY”
“VEILS OF CONSCIOUSNESS”
“VEILS OF CONSCIOUSNESS”
“4 elements”
“Hand”
