Boris Mihalj

academy-trained painter, stage actor

(b. 1966, Šempeter pri Gorici, Slovenia)

On Creating

Creating, and the need to create, are an inner pull present throughout my everyday life, as strong as the longing for beauty. The stories of a life lived, of my relationship to everything – above all to other people and to nature – follow the form and narrative of my inner world. They exist as works, documents, thoughts, sensations and emotions.

The need to tell and to make sense of the world I live in, to understand its relationships, structures and concepts, has always found its expression through play.

What was beyond my reach, I created for myself. A broken plastic clothespin I happened to find became, with a few additions and above all with imagination, the very thing I was looking for. And it was exactly as beautiful as I had imagined it.

Over the years, and with the impressions that accompanied my growth, the demands changed, as did the levels of expression that the forms could attain. When I could not afford works that brought me joy, or could not find them, I created them myself. In my own way. With my own means. I accumulated them, and I continue to collect them to this day.

Most likely, I do the same with people and with the environment in which I live. I carry the beauty I recognize within me; I live with it and create through it. Shaped according to my desires, they inhabit my mental and emotional space.

Education

1996 — Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti), Venice; academy-trained painter
mentor: Umberto Borella

Doctorates

2026 — Philosophy, Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU defended 2025;
mentor Mladen Dolar, co-mentor Urban Kordeš
2015 — Art History, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
mentor Martin Germ
2008 — Historical Anthropology, ISH, Ljubljana
mentor Jure Mikuž

Exhibitions · selected

2006 — Galerija KUD France Prešeren, Ljubljana · solo
2006 — Sublimno v kiparstvu, Ljubljanski magistrat
2005 — Galerija Cankarjevega doma, Vrhnika · solo
2005 — Oko in duh, Ljubljanski magistrat
2000 — Akt na Slovenskem, Jakopičeva galerija, Ljubljana
1994 — Malnig / Mihalj, Galleria il Cantiere, Venice; Bevilacqua la Masa, Padova
1993 — Pokrajinski arhiv, Nova Gorica · solo
1993 — Goriški muzej, Kromberk Castle; Galerija Alga, Izola

Artistic Projects

2006 — Rodin 2, Muzeum Institute, Stara elektrarna, Ljubljana
2004–2005 — Rodin 1: Moderna galerija Ljubljana; Galerija A+, Venice; Mestna galerija Celje; Museum of Contemporary Art, Skopje; Museum of Contemporary Art, Banja Luka; Gledališče Ptuj

Writings on Art · selected

Misliti igro [To Think Play] (ZRC SAZU, 2025)
Hrbet in hrbtna igra v delih C. D. Friedricha [The Back and “Back Acting” in the Works of C. D. Friedrich] (UL FF, 2014)
Teihoskopija. Uporaba dramaturškega sredstva v likovnem [Teichoscopy. The Use of a Dramaturgical Device in Visual Art] (ISH, 2008)
Essays: Hrbet [The Back], Kadaver v likovnem [A Cadaver in Visual Art], Golota in akt v likovni umetnosti srednjega veka [Nudity and the Nude in Medieval Art], Problem Malevič [The Malevich Problem] (ISH, 2004–2005)

In Parallel

Alongside painting, he works as a stage actor. As a permanent ensemble member of SNG Drama Ljubljana, he creates the conditions for his visual and research work.

Graduate actor (AGRFT, University of Ljubljana, 1992; equivalent to a master's degree), mentor Mile Korun.