STORIES CAST IN BRONZE
Slavko Oblak
Slavko Oblak was born in 1934 in Rečica near Bled. Growing up in the Bled area, surrounded by homesteads, gardens, and nature, remained an important part of his memories and later artistic work.
At the age of 15, he completed vocational school in Kranj and trained as a carpenter. Alongside his job, he also worked on the family farm. He mowed grass and helped with all kinds of farm work, both in the fields and in the stable, wherever a young and strong pair of hands was needed.
His path later took him to Germany, where he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. He then established a farm, studio, and foundry in the small village of Siegerstetten near Landshut, where many of his sculptures were created.
Oblak’s sculpture is rooted in direct engagement with materials. The creation of a sculpture involves the initial idea, modelling, and a strong sense of form, as well as a thorough understanding of materials and production techniques.
His background as a craftsman played an important role in this process. His training as a carpenter, his experience of working with bronze at the academy, and the work ethic he acquired at home enabled him to master the entire process himself.
Bronze holds a special place in his body of work. It allows for precise treatment of the surface while preserving traces of the hand and the modelling process. In his work, artistic imagination and craftsmanship therefore come together. A sculpture is not merely an idea, but an object shaped through work, material, and touch.
FORMS BORN FROM NATURE
Nature as inspiration
Nature is one of the most distinctive sources of inspiration in Oblak’s sculptural world. As a child, he gathered flowers that his mother arranged into bouquets for sale. In this way, he became familiar with many species of meadow flowers. His works feature blossoms, buds, leaves, animals, and other organic forms. Yet he rarely reproduces them literally. Instead, he observes their growth, movement, and structure, transforming them into new sculptural forms.
The same motif may occupy him again and again, appearing as a small-scale sculpture, an independent work, or part of a larger composition. Natural forms thus become a starting point for exploring volume, surface, and space, often moving playfully between the recognisable and the imaginative.
TWO PLACES, ONE ARTISTIC JOURNEY
Between Bavaria and Bled
For decades, Oblak’s life and work developed between Bavaria and Bled. Munich connected him with the German art world, while nearby Landshut provided a setting for his professional sculptural practice. More than twenty of his fountains and a similar number of public sculptures can be found in Landshut and elsewhere across Bavaria.
Bled and Rečica, however, remained important personal and creative points of reference. This duality is also reflected in his body of work, which brings together academic sculptural training, experience of the wider European art scene, and motifs rooted in nature and the environment of his childhood.
Today, his works can be found in a variety of public and private settings. In Bled, they can also be discovered beyond the gallery, as part of the landscape in which the artist grew up and to which he returned time and again.
