From barn to gallery
The Slavko Oblak Gallery is housed in the former farm building of the Mrak Homestead. Once a space devoted to work and the everyday life of the farm, the building has been given a new purpose through its restoration. Today, it presents a selection of sculptures by Slavko Oblak. A visit to the gallery begins with an introduction to the artist’s life and work. On the lower level, visitors can watch a documentary about his life and creative practice in the multimedia room. From there, the exhibition continues through the main gallery spaces, where a selection of bronze sculptures is on display.
The gallery brings together two worlds: the preserved homestead and the art it now houses. The former barn, with its wooden structure and visible traces of the past, provides a distinctive setting for Oblak’s bronze sculptures. A visit is therefore both an encounter with his sculptural work and an exploration of the history of the space in which the collection is presented.
The exhibition has been designed to offer more than a conventional museum experience. Visitors can explore the works from different angles and distances and, where the nature of the work and its display allow, through touch as well. Audio and video content enrich the experience with additional stories about the artist, his work, and the setting.
What will you see in the Gallery?
The exhibition reflects the diversity of Oblak’s sculptural work, ranging from portraits and human figures to animals, plant forms, sacred motifs, fountains, and designs for public spaces.
As you move through the gallery, you can see how the artist drew inspiration from the world around him and how recognisable forms in his work gradually transform, become simplified, and evolve into freer sculptural forms. The same motif may appear in different sizes and variations, each time taking on a subtly different character.
THE SEARCH FOR THE HUMAN FORM
The human figure and portraiture
The human figure is a recurring theme in Oblak’s sculpture. The gallery features portraits, heads, and figures in which he explores both the recognisability of the individual and the expressive qualities of the body, posture, and face.
Some works remain close to realistic representation, while others gradually simplify and transform the human form. Visitors can therefore compare the different ways in which Oblak developed sculptural forms from the human face and body.
WHEN NATURE BECOMES ART
Nature, animals, and plant forms
Nature provided Oblak with a rich source of inspiration. His sculptures feature animals, flowers, buds, and other plant forms. Rather than simply imitating them, he used them as a starting point for sculptural exploration.
He often developed the same motif in different sizes and variations, from small-scale sculptures to studies for larger works. By looking closely at these pieces, visitors can see how forms drawn from nature gradually evolve into the artist’s own distinctive sculptural language.
WHEN THE FIGURE BECOMES A SYMBOL
Sacred motifs
Sacred motifs form a distinctive part of Oblak’s work, where the human figure is combined with symbolic and spiritual themes.
These works also reveal the breadth of his sculptural language, ranging from more recognisable figurative forms to increasingly simplified and stylised interpretations.
WHEN SCULPTURE ENTERS THE PUBLIC REALM
Fountains and public sculpture
Oblak was also interested in sculpture created for public spaces. Fountains held a particularly important place in his work, bringing bronze sculpture together with water, movement, and sound.
Plant forms, flowers, and buds could evolve from small-scale sculptures into larger spatial compositions. In the gallery, visitors can trace this development from an initial sculptural idea to works conceived for squares, parks, and other public settings.
The fountain motif also connects the gallery with the outdoor spaces of the homestead. What visitors encounter inside as an artistic concept can be experienced differently in the garden, through movement, space, and the sound of water.
Bronze as Oblak’s material
Bronze is one of the key materials in Oblak’s sculpture. It allowed him to shape surfaces with precision while providing the strength required for larger sculptures and works intended for outdoor settings.
Viewed up close, his bronze works reveal traces of modelling, richly textured surfaces, and different approaches to working the material. The surface itself offers valuable insight into the artist’s process, showing how he built up, altered, and refined each form to give it its final sculptural character. For selected works, touch also becomes an important part of the experience. Form, volume, and surface can therefore be explored not only visually, but through touch as well.
This tactile dimension is not merely an accessibility feature for blind and partially sighted visitors, but another way for all visitors to experience Oblak’s sculpture.
The garden as an open gallery
The path leads from the gallery into the garden, where the experience changes once again. Visitors are no longer simply observing works of art but begin to move through the space itself.
The garden becomes an open-air gallery where art, cultural heritage, and nature come together. Sculptures interact with plants, water, light, and the sounds of the surroundings, while visitors discover them as they walk through the homestead.
Different stories unfold at various points along the way. Some reveal the history of the homestead, others create links with Oblak’s work, while others invite visitors to observe and experience their surroundings more closely: What can I see? What can I hear? What can I touch? How does the space change as I move through it?
