2007—2008

Sudoku — Second Time

Sudoku is a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.

The modern puzzle was invented by an American, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name "Number Place". It became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Sudoku, meaning single number. It became an international hit in 2005.

2006

Sudoku

Sudoku is a logic-based number placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.

The modern puzzle was invented by an American, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name "Number Place". It became popular in Japan in 1986, after it was published by Nikoli and given the name Sudoku, meaning single number. It became an international hit in 2005.

2005

Hattchings

Typographical material (simply stated although incorrectly, fonts) can be like anything else. There are no rules. It is impossible to distinguish typographical material according to form, use or treatment. It has always been different from other types of letters in that it is intended for reproduction and that the selection of a font defines how letters make up words: the process of typesetting is prefabricated.

1999—2003

Modularities

Since I compose material and shapes rather than content, I find the anonymous means of the Character »font« very suitable. It facilitates the infinite possibilities of structural laws, the expandability and flexibility of the system, uniform quantities and relativity of dimensions, all of which determine the final appearance. The whole is based on arrangement and rhythm, just like in music, which expresses itself only tonally.

I am interested only in what I cannot express in any other way. Anything I can present through painting should become a painting. So in order to understand graphics, I must first look at what I cannot express in any other way.

1997

Scripts

Why should I always draw shapes that keep repeating themselves in my work? I can define them as blocks in a drawing programme, but why should I keep defining constant relationships between shapes? Therefore I need a programme that can deal with constant shapes and relationships that are partly constant and partly changing. I can enter shapes in the computer like a row of characters. This means that apart from Bodoni, Garamond and Caslon, there are also Characters. The rest can be done using the QuarkXPress programme. The technical side is, in principle, this simple. But things get complicated at the next stage when I set some aesthetic demands.

For example: a space after a character is part of the character. This means that a large character is followed by a large space. But what happens if I want all spaces to be the same? Then I create a font in which the characters are without spaces. I insert spaces between the characters myself, just as I insert spaces between words. With this, I return to the good old days of »lead«, when typesetters worked manually with the help of the n—space. Nobody knows about this anymore. As if the computer knew everything instead of man. All this is good and fair, but everything changes with the n—space. There, the journey must be taken by foot. The computer surrenders its power and turns into the ordinary (indispensable) tool that it really is.

1995

Rotations

The operational steps (in my work) are derived from proportion, from the ratio of dimensions or from the basic dimension; this can be described in terms of modular order. This order is based on a module, on a unit that is constantly repeated in a certain work. These modular units have been used in architecture for centuries. But while in a Greek temple the module was hidden beneath the plasticity of the form, it is open in my "graphic" work. In this way I can observe modular order through a unique or multiple manipulation of the basic unit. I develop this until I formulate the basic theme that facilitates different operations. One element plus one element must, apart from their sum, give at least one more interesting link. The more interesting links are created, the more intense they are; the more elements they yield, the more important the result is. Several elements are connected in a structure (complex), where contrasts between different sizes and relationships between different parts become visible.

1995

12345

»A shape becomes non—object (abstract) when it creates a new shape that emerges from the human spirit. Abstraction is not transformation, as some would have it. This would imply that the artistic is transformative. But the artistic is not like that. The artistic is simply formative.« In the words of Anthony Caro: »in non—object (abstract) art, art is subject—matter and not content. Significance is implicit and not explicit. The method is the painting itself.« There is nothing descriptive about such works because man can express himself only with pure shapes and pure colours. In this way, non—object (abstract) works do not literally describe and, in this way, we escape into the artistic from the ordinary, from the conventions of the manuscript, where socially agreed significance prevails over content. »Before the letters of the alphabet make up a word, there are symbols.« David Smith

1994

LC

With this I realised that pure composition is a craft. I found my solution to the problem, because the laws of a craft are not mandatory for creativity. A science about craftsmanship is practical and as such extremely useful and possibly even unavoidable.

This procedure can be called a composition-building method with a limited number of elements that are connected only to one another. It consists of a single basic image of a many times varied line of (five) elements; this defines the horizontal and vertical line, as can be expected from a basic motif with a limited number of elements. This method is one of craftsmanship, which has no decisive influence on the composition, and the character of the work. It is merely an issue of approaching the material with regard to a selection of design approaches and awareness of the material's characteristics.

1987—1992

Compositions

Initially I drew all these drawings by hand with a rapidograph and a ruler. I wanted a computer-generated or computer-processed drawing. But, since I did not have a computer, I began to think like a computer instead. This way of thinking does not allow visual corrections. Consequently, all relationships between elements in the drawing are exactly the way they are. They are not concealed, which is achieved subconsciously when drawing by hand. Later, when the opportunity arose, I transferred all drawings to a computer. I changed and combined some of them, but in the process I discovered that the implementation of a work of art has a special charm and that the computer deprives us of many things. But it is an excellent simulation tool.

In retrospect, I tried to arrange drawings into logical units. I added text that, again, in retrospect speaks about my thoughts triggered by the drawings. But this is only a small proportion of all my thoughts.

I designed linear drawings without any illusion of the third dimension. Nevertheless, every composition can be translated into sculpture.

1992

Maastricht

The nominated entries

The jury nominated unanimously the entry from Slovenia, designed by Jaka Bonca and Miro Kvas for the first prize. The entry gives evidence of an broad understanding of life brief and is presented in an imaginative and convincing artistic way.

Gallery in the Kranjska hiša, Kranj, Slovenia

Typesettings by Jaka Bonča
March 6^th 2013 — March 25^th 2013

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria

International Painting Competition
15^th 2012 — February 17^th 2013

»One of the things I like about running this site is finding people who create Op Art in a totally original and unique way …«

A4 Printmakers, Cornwall, Great Britain — 2012

Open International Print Competition
September 2012

A4Printmakers.com

Prints and Impressions

An overview of current Slovene graphic from 2008 till today

International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 20 april 2012 at 7 p.m. — 17 june 2012

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria — 2011

A4 Printmakers, Cornwall, Great Britain — 2011

Open International Print Competition
September 2011

A4Printmakers.com

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria — 2010

International Painting Competition
December 15^th 2010 — February 15^th 2011

A4 Printmakers, Cornwall, Great Britain — 2010

Open International Print Competition
September 2010

A4Printmakers.com

Second International Biennale of Graphic Digital Arts - Gdynia 2010

Drawing in Slovenia II 1940—2009

Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia: 9. 7. 2010 — 9. 21. 2010

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria — 2010

Christmas Tree — for Skarabej^® — 2009

Drawing in Slovenia II 1940—2009

Maribor Art Gallery: 12. 11. 2009 — 28. 2. 2010

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria — 2009

Drawing in Slovenia II 1940—2009

Municipal Gallery Ljubljana: 25. 5. — 30. 8. 2009

Galeria de Arte Mexicana

Opening Thuesday, November 25, 2008 at 19:00.

LESSEDRA Gallery & Contemporary Art Projects, Sofia, Bulgaria — 2008

Graphic project
»Slovenijašport«, Ljubljana, Slovenija

Institute A. V. A.
Academy of Visual Arts

University of Zagreb
Faculty of architecture

One men exhibition »Sudoku«