This issue shows a set of 5 stamps based on works of Slovene illustrators.
Jelka Reichman is an Illustrator with a big “I” who has spent her life creating illustrations for little people. As she herself puts it: “The thing that interests me most in life is beauty ... I see beauty in small creatures, animals, children ... I see their inner world radiating outwards. That is what I depict.” And this same energy radiates outwards from her images: a hint of magic that is surprising in its artistically refined simplicity and enchanting in the timelessness of its beauty.
Marlenka Stupica, a creator of fabulous images who illustrated all the famous fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Andersen. As she herself once put it: “I only truly embraced those texts that awakened my imagination, including my artistic imagination.” Her work is redolent of the embroideries of time, nostalgia for paradise, the fruits of uniqueness and the mystery of the unseen. All this can be found in her creations: in gardens, forests, tapestries or merely tables loaded with tempting delicacies of many colours.
Zvonko Čoh is one of the most prominent, original and immediately recognisable Slovene illustrators. His creations have a specific, caricature-like style and he presents them in a colourful, vivid manner with all their human failings. Wit is a trademark of his figures and each of them – human, animal or inanimate object – has its own character. His brush brings every character to life and they stir powerful feelings in those who view them.
The late Kostja Gatnik was a man of many talents and a unique and original artist. He was a painter, an excellent draughtsman, a cartoonist, an illustrator, a photographer, a graphic designer ... and above all a perfectionist who was totally at one with his craft. He will always be considered one of the pillars of Slovene visual art. He also had an excellent ear, and a sense of rhythm is extremely important not just in music but also in the visual sphere. An artist – a legend.
Karel Zelenko is a subtle observer of life, a master of the line. The playfulness of his line reveals a melancholy and poetic art of life, depicting the world as a scene of human comedy and anxiety, permeated at times with humanity or grotesque satire, sometimes full of mischievousness and occasionally unobtrusively engagé. We do not know where this line will take us on its journey but perhaps, as Paul Klee once said: “A line is a dot that went for a walk.”
