Virginia Primozic is an award-winning artist based in New Mexico, USA.
She first explored art with crayons and finger paint, guided by her mother, also a professional artist.
Virginia picks subjects that either resonate with her, impress her with vivid color and depth, or express simple truth, goodness, and beauty. She wants her work to resonate with viewers, inviting them into a shared moment, memory, or feeling that transcends her personal depiction of the subject.
She won Best in Show in Fusion Art’s Colors 2025 Art Exhibition in April 2025.
Virginia Primozic was born in New Mexico, but has been nomadic since the age of six, her trail including Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Texas, and France. Her mother was also a professional artist, working primarily in oils, and it was through her influence that Virginia first began to consider paper as a primary medium.
Prior to her art career, Virginia spent twenty-five years homeschooling four children K-12. During those years, the idea sat in the back of her mind: could she one day develop the idea of paper as painting – not with traditional collage or assemblage techniques, but using only the color and texture of handmade papers to recreate the effect of paint. This has been her focus from the start.
Her condensed list of influences includes familiar names from the world of collage, such as Braque, Matisse and Peter Blake. Closer to home, Virginia appreciates the way Edward Gonzales uses blocks of color, and the way Bill Baker doesn’t blend his pastels.
Virginia currently lives and works in Gallup, NM, on the southern edge of the Navajo Nation, surrounded by the beauty of the Southwest’s high desert landscape.
Paper is my paint. That is, I apply paper to canvas in a unique variation of the traditional collage technique. Historically, collage is the art of collecting disparate elements such as photographs, drawings, printed papers, fabric, natural materials, etc., and rearranging them into a new artwork. While impressed and inspired by historical figures of collage art ― Braque, Matisse, Blake ― I focus on using handmade papers, endeavoring to create the effect of paint on the canvas. It is the paper medium that unifies my work, regardless of subject matter. Occasionally it has been difficult to find a category for my work, as it is not collage in the traditional sense. It is not painting, as there is no paint. Neither is it mixed media, as I am not mixing the paper with another medium.
In the process of creating a work, one paper may be just the right shade for the effect I’m trying to achieve, otherwise multiple layers and combinations of paper are required to achieve the right hue and intensity. Organic papers are infused with natural colors and textures which add their own beauty. Some, like Japanese lace paper, are thin enough to function as a glaze, while others, like bark paper from Mexico, are heavy and difficult to control. Every work is an experimental challenge, as the paper is wet when applied to the canvas, and each layer needs to dry before revealing what the final effect will be.
Sam is a portrait of a musician from Dallas. He was playing an outdoor, evening gig, there was a breeze, and the bright pink stage lights created that marvelous halo around his head. How could I not try to capture that in paper? The rest of the work submitted here illustrates how inspiration comes from many sources: flowers, animals, cool cars, landscapes inspired by the beauty of the American Southwest, and a few abstracts along the way.
Visit Virginia at the below links to learn more about her and her art.
| Website |
Click on the Thumbnail Images Below to see the Artwork in a Lightbox
