Gaja Golija

Golija’s art evolved from the early, socially charged figurative prints from the 1950s that were created under the influence of his mentor and close friend Božidar Jakac, to increasingly abstract compositions, in which the realistic starting point is first replaced by the stylized dynamics of sharply delineated surfaces in black and white and colour woodcuts. Golija perfected his woodcutting technique during his stay in Japan. He travelled there in 1957 at the invitation of the later chairman of the International Art Education Association and the assistant director of the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, and thus became the first student from the Academy in Ljubljana to visit Japan after World War II.
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