Gašper Jemec was born in Kranj, Slovenia in 1975. The son of a painter and an art historian, the young Jemec was brought up in an environment that allowed him to immediately understand and appreciate the importance of art, creativity and their limitless possibilities. Naturally, he cultivated his curiosity and artistic gift early on. When the time came to go to university, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where he studied painting and new media as both an undergraduate and graduate student. He won the Herder scholarship from the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung FVS in Hamburg, which allowed him to then deepen his sculptural skills at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
Artistically, Jemec is comfortable in multiple mediums and using myriad materials. He even blends epochs in a mix of tradition and technology-driven processes. The result is free expression, where colour or its absence, along with materiality and transparency collaborate and contrast fluidly in ambitious aesthetic ensembles. Jemec’s relationship to his canvas is active; he refuses to see the edge of the surface as a border, and instead considers creative space to be infinite and accessible. Hence, perhaps, his appreciation for site-specific projects and creative periods. As Jemec himself observes, ‘local culture and its specifics are substance that I need and use in my work’.
Jemec has exhibited his work all over the world, from Slovenia to America, including in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Sweden. He has also resided and worked in Indiana, Los Angeles, New York, Vienna, Hamburg, Sakaide (Japan), Valencia and Moscow.
