At the ART EXPO organized by AAMI corporation, Nina exhibited under the name Nina and Friends, and with the project addressed the topic of solidarity between artists. Into the exclusive field of art represented by the market and the gallery world, Nina opened the door to friends who could not enter there due to personal, social, and societal factors as well as the rigidity and closedness of the system.

“In the spring, Marko and Milena, from CUDV Črna na Koroškem visited me in my artist studio. They created abstract paintings with adapted movement according to the 5Rhythms method and the principles of abstract painting. Even Boris and Vanessa once joined them.”

“Rade is my friend and a 5Rhythms dancer. He likes to create selfies. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his twenties and is retired on disability. Selfi Rade: The Spirit has already been exhibited at the Sarasota Art Center in Florida.”

“Marion is a 5Rhythms dancer from Berlin. She is an academic painter and is not able to paint.”

Last summer, Nina and the users of CUDV Črna na Koroškem carried out the project Abstract Summer. The users of CUDV spent 4 days co-creating a collective picture with the artist. There was no room for you at ArtExp this time.

In the Črna na Koroškem Gallery, in the lobby of the Cultural Center, we learned about abstract art for four mornings in a row with a local woman, painter Nina Stopar, and created a group or collective painting.

Painter Nina Stopar, born in Žerjavčanka, uses the body in her work, and she attaches her art to the heritage of action painting. In this way, she also guided our users to the painting process and the painting. With movement exercises based on the 5Rhythms method, Nina is a certified teacher of this practice; we raised awareness of the feeling of the body and movement, which is extremely important for painting large formats, and then through playing and meeting on the “dance floor” of our studio, we explored, how colors can move on the canvas and used this knowledge when we painted.

We started the creative process on the floor, just like an artist begins her paintings, layered the painting, supplemented what had already been painted, or sometimes covered it with new strokes and elements. In doing so, we were constantly moving and creating in such a way that we followed the abstract path indicated by the painting. This kind of work required quite a bit of time to observe the picture as well as to consider or awaken a subtle feeling of what to add, where, and in what way to complete the emerging whole, even though our creation was permeated by the spirit of playful, spontaneous research – abstract creation. Thus, we can honestly speak of a group painting, to which everyone contributed equally, with their uniqueness and uniqueness in artistic expression and in the material they pasted onto the painting. We used different art techniques, such as painting, collage, dripping, drawing, and different materials, to name just a few: acrylic paints and acrylic spray, wax crayons, fabric, adhesive tape, decorations, cardboard newspaper, and crepe paper.

In four days, two colorful abstract paintings of a larger format were created, which hinted at the joy of a sunny summer, and when in good company, we do what makes us happy. Different elements from the known world of creators, such as a house, a flower, a heart, or a pasted-on pendant, complement each other, overlap and intertwine with more abstracted or completely abstract images and thus co-create a whole that resembles the mosaic image of a fantasy world typical of Surrealism and abstract painting.

The project with the resulting works of art was exhibited in Fajn plac in Črna na Koroškem during the tourist week.