Andreja Panič Omahna

About me - Andreja Panič Omahna - Visual Artist Between Earth and Silence Andreja Panič Omahna is a Slovenian visual artist and academic painter whose work explores the quiet resonance between memory, architecture, and inner stillness. She creates tactile, sculptural paintings using raw earth and hand-shaped plaster, resulting in unique relief surfaces that evoke timelessness and sacred space. Her series The Mysterious Past reflects her deep interest in forgotten forms—portals, arches, windows—that serve as symbolic thresholds rather than literal depictions. With a strong ecological awareness, Andreja avoids artificial pigments and embraces natural materials to emphasize authenticity, temporality, and the silent power of matter. Her artistic language draws on archetypal imagery, spiritual sensitivity, and a poetic sense of absence. Each work invites contemplation, not only as a visual experience but as a meditative encounter between the seen and the unseen. Andreja holds a degree in Painting from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where she studied under Professor Andrea Granchi and completed four years of graduate studies, focusing on materiality, symbolism, and the poetic potential of visual space. She previously studied at the Enrico e Umberto Nordio State Art Institute in Trieste under Professor Livio Schiozi, graduating in 2001 from the Department of Painting and Decoration. In 2011, she furthered her education in the field of pedagogy and andragogy at the Faculty of Education in Maribor. Her artistic development has been deeply influenced by her father, Dušan Panič, a self-taught artist and former stonecutter, whose lifelike portraits and stone works left a lasting impression. Observing his creative process from a young age was a formative experience. Alongside his influence, she draws inspiration from surrealist masters such as Magritte, Dali, and Escher. She lives and works in Lucija, Slovenia, where she also started a family. After a long creative pause, the global pandemic gave her the time and space to return fully to art. In 2021, she held her first joint exhibition with her father, presenting for the first time her new series Misteriozna preteklost. Her works carry an intention to leave a lasting trace—something timeless, quietly resonant, and rooted in both matter and meaning. Artist Statement: My work is a quiet dialogue with time, space, and memory. I am drawn to forgotten architecture—ruins, arches, staircases, sealed windows—not for their historical context, but for their emotional presence. These structures, often incomplete or decaying, carry a kind of stillness that speaks more loudly than words. I use natural materials such as earth (which I hand-sift), gypsum, glue, and black acrylic to build surfaces that are not just visual, but tactile and textural. The earth itself is not symbolic—it is the history, the trace of life, the ground beneath all passing. I am interested in what remains when function fades: how form continues to hold meaning even after its original purpose is lost. My works are neither illustrations nor narratives. They are spaces of resonance—open enough to receive a viewer’s own memory or silence. I do not try to reconstruct the past, but to honor its quiet persistence. Each piece is a kind of threshold—between what was and what still echoes.