Loredana Zega

Biography

I'm a devoted freelance calligrapher and an artist with a rich creative energy and a strong passion for work. As almost every child I was fascinated by colours! When I was only 9 I totally fell in love with letters and dance at the same time! At the age of 15 my calligraphic flambeau was chosen from 400 and it was given to a Pope John Paul II. After finishing high school in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, I started to write exercise books for teaching calligraphy and I opened my own calligraphy company at the age of 21. Through teaching I gained a lot of practical knowledge , but that wasn't enough for me. I found an organisation that holds an English National diploma in Calligraphy and organises calligraphy master classes (The Calligraphy Lettering Art Society - CLAS - London). I finally gained a National Diploma in Calligraphy in 2007. My teaching list includes eight different scripts plus three Cyrillic scripts and many various techniques such as; experimental embossing, dry brush on wood and fabric, aquarelle, sgrafitto techniques, illumination...

For the last 10 years I've been working for many private clients and institutions such as: the National Gallery and National Museum of Slovenia, creating and writing in medieval scripts, demonstrating calligraphy throughout Slovenia. In 2010 I got a Certificate for the most innovative 3D piece on the Art and the Letter exhibition in the British Library. And this is the 4th year that I have had support from the Slovenian Ministry of Culture which recognize my work to be a high level.

Specifically , the last few years I've been exploring new writing bases and tools, combining writing with music and dance. Therefore I attended some contemporary art, dance and calligraphy master classes at home and abroad (Belgium, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Slovenia ) which opened my mind and gave me a lot of new aspects of my work. I finally found a way to combine performance art with letters!

With a professional colleague Ales Bajec - videographer, we created a performance "Dance the Letters" which was repeated many times in the past 3 years. For one video, which is a part of the performance, we gained the 1st prize at the Art University Nova Gorica - Slovenia.

Last year I made another dance – calligraphy production “Strings and Letters”, with Italian guitarist - Nazzareno Zacconi and performed with him in Italy and Slovenia. At the end of this year there will be new dance performance “Love story”, which will be full of different dances and calligraphy executed in many different ways – live on stage! I can’t wait !