HUGO GALERIE is pleased to present “ Long Gone, ” a solo exhibition featuring the volatile wonder captured in Jernej Forbici’s paintings. The artist’s practice is charged with an environmental message of nature’s ephemerality and our role in protecting it.

“Long Gone” was inspired by Forbici’s visit to an altered landscape reminiscent of James Lovelock’s Daisyworld: a computer simulation illustrating his Gaia hypothesis which theorizes the Earth is a closed system whose organisms self-adjust under changing conditions in order to maintain a livable environment. In Daisyworld, Lovelock demonstrated how a planet of black and white daisies slowly became a field of white when exposed to ever-increasing sunlight and heat; eventually, even the white daisies were unable to survive. In Long Gone , Forbici shows us a land of beauty in peril. Like a comet’s last fireworks before it is snuffed out, bright florals burst across his canvases and technicolor lakes shimmer beneath a sometimes acidic sky. His works are textured with smudges, scrapes, and generous impasto.

Evidence of the artist’s hand echoes the human impact on Earth—both the good and the bad. Forbici’s world is one of savage beauty. But he is present in every painting and, ultimately, in control of the outcome. Just as we are in our environment. The artist’s message is to embrace our responsibility in protecting the wonder that surrounds us. Do not stand idly by while beauty recedes into the past.