The new premises, located in the west wing of the monastery, will be inaugurated with a retrospective exhibition of works by Valentin Oman, a Slovenian minority painter from Austria's Carinthia.

The gallery, which is among the largest in the country and will have 4,500 square metres of exhibition space available now, said that the expansion provided it with modern spaces suitable for bigger projects.

Started in 1974, the gallery is home to a comprehensive collection of early Slovenian expressionists like France and Tone Kralj and also features permanent exhibitions of greats like Božidar Jakac, Bogdan Boričič, Janez Boljka and Zoran Didek.

It has around 20,000 visitors each year, with a positive trend recorded last year.