In 1979, the painting Koper was created. The city in which Aleksij Kobal was born in 1962 and grew up became the motif of the earliest painting of his opus. The work was painted two years after the artist moved to Ljubljana to enrol in the School of Design. In this new millieu he was, contrary to Koper, soon recognised as a promising creative artist and in the same year he was awarded the Plečnik Award for Exeptional Achievements in Graphic Design.
He presented his paintings and photographs to the public on several occasions during his high school years; he was twice awarded the Puhar Prize for his photos in 1981.
Why did the author - who at the time apparently spent most of the week in the capital - feel the need to choose TiOtif marked by his past? That his painting of the city of Koper was not simply a landscape, furthermore, that the selection of the motif on the otherwise artistically ill-defined surface, still unmarked by several years of drill at : Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts, is of special importance, is proven by looking at Kobal's complete opus that is enced by the artist's experience of the environment in which he lives. His paintings, which were created in a span of 29 years, take us on a journey from Koper, through Slavnik, Prešnica, over Črni Kal, via Kozina railway station and all the way to the Šiška district of Ljubljana.
