Sculptor & Painter

MIK SIMCIC

Mik have symbolically brought Botticelli’s Venus – as a spiritual voyager – through half a century. In that time, she was announcing the Renaissance in the painting The Birth of Venus. Today’s contemporary version in the form of a marble sculpture named “A New Era” is announcing and anticipating yet another rise of a human being harbouring higher values. Mik then returned one century back into the last creative movement of humanity and he has seemingly invited Picasso, Klimt, Miró, Van Gogh and Monet as witnesses of that time, to each paint Mik’s statue through their eyes.
The Greek God Zeus wanted to conquer the princess Europa. He turned into a beautiful bull, charmed her so that she climbed onto his back and disappeared with her into the sea (horizontal stone). He swam with her to the island of Crete (vertical stone), where they made love. The sculpture presents the relationship between opposites; strength and forcefulness in the symbolism of the bull and lyricism and nostalgia in the image of a woman.
Zeus fell in love with Europa, the beautiful daughter of the Phoenician king. He transform himself into a white bull with golden horns and kidnapped her. Europa’s father was heartbroken and sent her brother to find her. He never did find his sister but it was he who brought the alphabet to the Greeks and so the continent of Europe got its name from the princess Europa. The powerful full-body sculpture of a bull embraces an emotional and fragile Europe.
Large vertical glass panels with their fragility, transparency and energy transfer, representing the water, trapped between stable stone base and hard metal on the top, seemingly support a large heavy bronze sculpture. The fearlessness and determination of the bull is enhanced by the gentle eroticism of the woman. Monumental sculpture stands in front of of Slovenia’s largest office building, Crystal Palace in BTC in Ljubljana.
Mik has been bestowed the honour of getting, as the only sculptor, personal consent from Pope Francis to create his sculptural portrait in stone.
To present the image of the spirit of the Holy Father in stone as well as possible, he has made seven different portrait studies in bronze, the largest series in the history of the Vatican. Portraits attempt to depict different states of His spirit and are therefore named the »Seven Endless Moments of Pope Francis«. One of that images Mik carved into Carrara marble and gave the bust to the Holy Father at the private audience in june 2019.