Gregor Kregar, born Slovenia, 1972, received his BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and an MFA from Elam, University of Auckland. He exhibits in New Zealand, Australia, USA and Europe. Solo shows include: Piercing the clouds, Tinsheds Gallery, Biennale of Sydney 2008, I Appear and disappear, 2003-2004, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin; Te Tuhi Art Gallery, Auckland. Group shows include: Telecom Prospect 2007, Wellington City Gallery, 2007; Red Badge of Courage, Newark, New Jersey; Art Omni 2007, New York; A&P Show, Christchurch Art Gallery 2006.
Gregor won the Wallace Art Award in 2000 and a Norsewear Art Award in 2004. He has completed many public commissions and his work is included in art collections such as: Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland; Connells Bay Sculpture Park, Waiheke Island; and Francis J. Greenburger Collection, New York. Gregor has been invited on several New Zealand and international art residencies including Art Omi, New York, USA in 2007, McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, USA in 2006, and The South Project Residency, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia in 2005. He has been a full-time artist for the last six years.
Gregor's work is not confined to any single medium or material and his art practice is concerned with relationships between art and everyday life. He is interested in how a familiar subject can be represented in a way that displaces the original meaning and transforms it from an invisible and mundane existence into the realm of the ridiculously spectacular. His work deals with issues of ambiguity and the uncanny yet it is strongly connected to the social, economical and political environment he lives in.