Ljubljana Art Expo is a collective exhibition and art fair that opened its doors to professionals, exhibitors, critics, and the general public in the beautiful setting of the Brdo Congress Centre in Kranj.
Over the course of several days, the Congress Centre became a vibrant hub of artistic diversity and creative energy. Ana Koncul presented layers, texture, expressiveness, and symbolism through the exhibited painting The evolution of butterflies.
The evolution of butterflies, mixed media, 80 x 80 cm
The evolution of butterflies: A moment of rtansformation captured in texture
What does the moment truly look like when something fragile, delicate, and fleeting is born out of raw matter? The Birth of the Butterfly explores precisely that process — not through illustration, but through emotion. It does not depict a butterfly in the traditional sense, but rather its evolution: the moment when nature stretches between larva and flight, between darkness and light, between confinement and release.
The mixed-media technique gives this work a strength that pure color alone could not achieve. Relief-like, strongly emphasized textures create the impression of pulsation — as if the forms are changing before the viewer’s eyes. Thick layers of material evoke the organic structure of a chrysalis, while dynamic strokes of paint suggest the energy that is just about to burst outward.
Within this visual tension lies the entire drama of transformation.
The yellow surfaces appear like pathways through which light seeks its exit. The darker forms feel like the final remnants of enclosure, while the vivid colors bring hints of wings yet to unfold. Altogether, it reminds us that every butterfly — and every change in our own lives — is the result of an invisible, internal process that lasts longer than we imagine.
Thus, the painting becomes a symbol — not only of nature but of the human ability to create harmony out of chaos, and beauty out of uncertainty. And in the moment when the vibrating textures become wings, what is born before us is not only a butterfly, but the very idea of how powerful every transformation can be, no matter how quiet it may appear.
