Ivan Prerad: Portolan Studies

From the flickering memories of the experiences of past times, Ivan Prerad translates the fascination with cartography onto flickering surfaces with abstracted forms. From the focus on topographic maps and painting inspired by melancholic memories that ran through previous artistic achievements, the author brings a new series of works, this time inspired by a different type of maps from which he extracts minimal shapes by arranging them into independent compositions. Old portolan maps that are ... Read More

From the flickering memories of the experiences of past times, Ivan Prerad translates his fascination with cartography onto vibrating surfaces with abstracted forms. From the focus on topographic maps and painting inspired by melancholic memories that ran through previous artistic achievements, the author brings a new series of works, this time inspired by a different type of maps from which he extracts minimal forms by arranging them into independent compositions.
In this series of works, the old Portolan maps used by sailors during the Middle Ages – full of illustrations and various shapes that mark a space – are taken out of context, their fragments isolated and drawn into the play of formalistic characteristics. In the works, there are indications of the original meanings of simplified shapes such as flags, tents or mountains that once served as signifiers of real sites, and here they take on the function of an inspirational navigator to the author's creative worlds.
The creative process begins with painting abstracted shapes on watercolors, in which the predominance of playful relationships of colors and shapes over content is visible. The author elaborates these simplified fragments taken from Portolan maps in large-scale experiments. In the depiction of primary geometric forms, there is a distinct flatness, but the technique of layered application of colors creates a dynamic flickering effect in the observer whose eye cannot clarify the boundaries between the horizontally coated layers of paint additionally emphasized by the slightly relief lines that follow them. The effect of shallow relief was achieved by subsequently removing the strips that were horizontally placed on the surface just before the painting process. In this way, the surface of the painting, observed from a distance, comes to life in the perception of the observer and creates an optical illusion – a playful aura that is constantly changing and does not allow the human eye or the camera lens to be tamed. By shifting the viewer's eyes, i.e. by approaching and changing the angle of view of the painting, the overall experience of the work changes thanks to the layering of the surface observed at the micro level.
Portolan studies mark playful beginnings, an experimental phase that is part of the process of developing the author's own painting process and signature. This series of paintings refers to previous works, but in a creative play with primary forms freed from the burden of intimate reminiscences of past lived experiences.

Sara Mikelić

BIOGRAPHY

Ivan Prerad was born in 1988 in Zagreb. In 2007, he graduated from the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb. In 2008, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, majoring in painting, and in 2012 he obtained the academic title of Bachelor of Painting (Baccalaureus). In 2014, he completed his graduate university studies in painting in the class of red.prof.art. Zoltan Novak.
He has exhibited at three solo exhibitions: SC Gallery, Zagreb (2013); Zlati Ajngel Gallery, Varaždin (2014); Galženica Gallery, Velika Gorica (2015); and several group exhibitions: 31. Youth Salon: Corrections, Prsten Gallery, HDLU, Zagreb (2012); Erste Fragments 9, Bačva Gallery, HDLU, Zagreb (2013); 3rd Biennial of Painting, HDLU, Zagreb (2015); (re)thinking Space&Place, Flottmann-Hallen, Herne, Germany (2016).
He has won several awards: Purchase Award of the Rector's Office of the University of Zagreb for the best works of students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (2012), Erste Grand Prix (2013), HPB Award for Young Artist at the 3. Biennial of Painting in Zagreb (2015).

Contact: iprerad@gmail.com