Ivana Hostnik builds her artistic universe between light and shadow, between the solidity of painting and the ephemerality of animation. Her journey weaves through languages, countries, and forms of expression: she studied German Literature before surrendering to visual arts, moving between Serbia, Germany, Portugal, and Slovenia, shaping her vision through words,
colors and movements. She currently lives and works in Ljubljana.
Her works seem to capture the precise moment when an image hesitates between becoming and dissolving. In her paintings, each line is a suspended trace, a particle that both composes and dissolves forms, as if matter itself vibrates, refusing rigidity. Empty space is not absence but breath — an interval that suggests movement, a visual echo stretching beyond the canvas. Inspired by
natural phenomena and animation, her research expands into light installations, where shadows reveal invisible nuances, and perception becomes a game between what is seen and what is sensed.
With exhibitions in Portugal, Slovenia, France and Serbia, Ivana moves through artistic and physical territories with the same fluidity as her lines, crossing boundaries and transforming into new forms. Her work does not seek fixed answers but opens itself to possibilities — like light that never stops, like an image that never fully settles.
Text by: Juliano Mattos