Marija Grahovac Karan
THE TEST GROUND OF TRAVELLING – Evocative forces #3
7 - 23. September 2022.
The exhibition of Marija Grahovac Karan “THE TEST GROUND OF TRAVELLING– Evocative forces #3”, is open until September 23rd in the Gallery of the Graphic Collective, 11 Dragoslava Jovanovića Street.
The work of the visual artist Marija Grahovac Karan as part of the contemporary scene is entering its third decade. She opened her first exhibition at the Graphic Collective, titled “On love”, in 2006, presenting a cycle of stylized figural narratives with expressive colors. The interaction of bodies and the clash of the male and female principles explored in her early work, was later abstracted in an exquisite pictorial projection of the said relations on a microcosm. The symmetrical compositions of intense chromatics exhibited at the 2011 show “Colour Force” at the Graphic Collective sublimed the manifestation of universal cosmic forces, by illustrating the tense energetic charge of atoms. In her further poetic discourse, Grahovac Karan reduces the orthography of the pictorial sign to a linear rhythmic graphism, and her compositions become more complex by using variable matrices, subtle tonal modelling, repetitions with minimal differences in the relations, as she moves towards exploring construction/deconstruction, appearing/disappearing. She is open to new media and technical possibilities, as she uses nonstandard material instead of paper, as well as conquers the third dimension by overlapping fragments of printed planes. All that, as well as her adaptability and dialogue with gallery and public space, proves her spirit of free roaming, unrestrained by the limits of the traditional graphic medium, and connects her creative endeavors with the artistic object and ambiance.
“Marija Grahovac Karan continues her focus on the examination of the public image from earlier exhibited works of parallel stripes moving it into that ground floor with the wide glass windows and the first floor of the gallery, which itself participates as a spatial medium. Her vivid sequence of situational, energetic and meaningful images reflects the city, staged, replayed and in a graphic way visually embedded as the authorised identity of physical space but whose effect is renewed.
The principle of the multiplication of the image, sometimes, is similar to those of urban planning and the confident 3D visualisation of places, often at the expense of diversity. In acquiring a galleristic scope, the possibility of different kinds of encounters is emphasised in the logic of the building’s functions. The profile of gradation printed onto a graphic sheet or now onto the large expanses of the windows, that is 'glass' walls, presents an enigma of experiential travel. (...) The well-known breakthroughs in artistic composition, the wall-based and suspended geometric masses from more than half a century ago, be they from Daniel Buren or Sol Lewitt, paved the way for the visual path which uses rhythm, contrast and lines that cease to be the determinants of physical movements. In the situation of Belgrade's complex social status, the sense of anticipation and other upheavals cause collective existences and personal, often neglected, artistic feelings to succumb to the established patterns. (...) Marija Grahovac Karan's artistic ensemble of duplication and imprints opens up beyond a simple planimetry. The diminutive modules on the tables aim at the sense of taste, so that edible triangles are also produced, and the physical interiority of the monad = exhibition space is left on the table. Unlike similar futuristic feasts and assemblages in history, this kind of artistic offering accords with the simplicity of our paradoxical age.“ Nikola Šuica, Art historian
Marija Grahovac Karan was born in Belgrade in 1978. Graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 2002, Printmaking and Book Design Module; received master’s degree at the same faculty in 2006, and a doctor’s degree in Applied graphics in 2017. Her works have been presented at 16 solo and over 100 group exhibitions in the country and abroad (Belgium, Corea, Hungary, Romania, Italia, Uruguay, Turkey, Croatia, Poland, Russia…). She is a winner of several national and international awards; the author of and a participant in several local and international workshops and colonies in the field of contemporary graphic art, graphic design and book design; teaches at the College of Fine and Applied Arts Professional Studies in Belgrade.
Photos from the opening of the exhibition:
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