Katja Smerdu and Paride Di Stefano are successful young coastal artists. As life companions, they also share an atelier-gallery, dubbed the “Apeiron.” The indicative title “origin, beginning and infinity” of their workplace in Izola indicates the general content of their work. Katja is a sculptor who explores the world through sculptures, objects, and is also involved in drawing, Paride is primarily a painter who, in creative expressiveness, also engages in the video field. Their work is also important in educational terms, as they have been organizing courses and art workshops for children and youth for some time. on the basis of excellent technical design and expressiveness in the semantic, they round off into the fabulability of the contemporary. Ecological, social, ethical issues stand out here.

Dejan Mehmedovič

Katja Smerdu was born in 1980 in Koper. In 2003 she enrolled in the Sculpture Program at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. In 2004 he worked in Celje in a restaurant workshop. In 2005, she attends a workshop with academic sculptor Mojca Smerd. As part of the Erasmus program in 2007, he attends Brera Academy in Milan. In 2008, she graduated in Sculpture from the Sculptura Scripta Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. In 2013 he completed his master’s degree with honors. prof. Matjaž Počivavšek and prof. dr. Igor Škamperlet at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana.

Paride Di Stefano was born in 1979 in Cassino, Italy. In 1998 he graduated from the G. Manuppell State Institute of Art in Isernia, Department of Architecture and Interior Design. In 2003, he attended the Supérieur des Beaux Arts Saint Luc Institute in Liege, Belgium, and graduated with honors from the Department of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, as part of the Erasmus program. In 2007, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and a habilitation to teach painting disciplines at an academic postgraduate course at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. From 2002-2008 he organized the Sant’Agapito Film Festival (IT) “SAFF”.

Since 2011 Katja Smerdu and Paride Di Stefano have been running Studio Apeiron in Izola, where they have been organizing art exhibitions, performances, art workshops…