Arjan Pregl was born in Ljubljana in 1973. In 1998, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana (under the mentorship of Professors Metka Krašovec and Bojan Gorenec). He also pursued a postgraduate course in painting at the Academy under the tutelage of Professor Bojan Gorenec, and attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the US during his final semester. After earning his MA in painting in 2001, he enrolled in a post-graduate course in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana under the tutelage of Professor Lojze Logar, and earned his second MA in 2004. In 2006, he received a working scholarship from the Slovenian Ministry of Culture.
Artistically, Pregl responds to every day socio-political events at home and around the world by instrumentalising three key elements: a constructive criticism of art theory, humour and a political edge. Although he predominantly explores these through painting, he uses a wide array of techniques to express his opinion on any given situation in a humorous and ironic way.
With various approaches, Pregl effectively combines the direct with the indirect, the obvious with the hidden, the narrative with the abstract, and the fun with the serious.
As an emerging writer (of columns, articles, short stories) and in 2017, his debut novel About a Woman Who Refused to Leave the Balcony); he and his sister, novelist Sanja Pregl, created a children’s picture book series entitled Octopus Alenčica.
Pregl’s works have been exhibited in several exhibitions in Slovenia (including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana; UGM Studio, Maribor; and Equrna Gallery, Ljubljana), as well as internationally (China, USA, Spain).
