Kaja Upelj’s practice derives from altering the individual’s experience of glass. Reshaping our perception of the material through capturing and conveying glass in its most fundamental essence and the impression of fluidity. Oscillation of luminosity and iridescence in artist’s work indicates a duality of our perception of the surroundings, evoking a question of our experience and understanding of the world. The form and mystical nature of the work resembles the ideology, defining lines supports the reality. Kaja’s art acknowledges the existence of the ideology and the accompanying threat of its ubiquity in today’s society.
She believes that the world we perceive fails to be a true reality unless we start questioning the ideological daily fragments; false ideas, we voluntarily agree to follow. We subconsciously shape the issues of the world, while believing we are forming objective decision, which are often result of manipulated information from our surroundings. Each series is a continuum to the previous. We gradually and almost unknowingly reach an awakening to our absurd environment; romanticised and shaped by the sublime and alluring everyday object. Such distortion evokes a realization of current situations and implication of ideology in everyday existence.
Kaja Upelj (b.1992) is a Slovenian artist working between Slovenia and the United Kingdom. She graduated from the Royal College of Art (2018) specializing in glass, prior to that she received BA in Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (2016). During her MA, Upelj developed a technique where iridescent colours occur from chemical reactions within glass. Kaja has won numerous scholarships and award, including being named a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust Scholar in the UK and one of the global emerging young talents at New Horizons 2018 in China. She has exhibited internationally, showing in art fairs such as Collect in London, Miart and Milan Design Week in Milan as well as in Nomad Circle situated in various cities.
