Mia Maraković / Exodus
Solo exhibition
FROM THE PREFACE OF THE EXHIBITION
Who is the author of this paper? How did it come about?
These are the questions that arise as we stand in front of a work of art, a final product exhibited in a traditionally sterile gallery space, separated from its natural environment and separated from its creator.
Often we don't know more about the author than the text that was handed to us at the exhibition. A beautifully written, polished and refined text. Turning away from the finished and emphasizing the process, change, reflection, continuity, Mia Maraković approaches her works in a different way, questioning herself and the art she creates. She intervenes in the given medium and upgrades it, thus mapping her reality on several levels, transforming unwanted books and painful memories into diaries. The sometimes airy blend of literature and art flows into the blackness of brutal literalism, immediacy and self-reflection.
The artist has been making art diaries for the last eight years, and with the decision to exhibit them publicly in 2018, she irreversibly and unambiguously exposed herself in front of the gallery audience, unadulterated her memories, fears, insecurities, moments of pain, joy and daydreaming. With an experimental exhibition made in situ, this time the author inscribes the content of the diary in the gallery, and in addition, she offers a simulation of her own workspace, in order to create a more intimate atmosphere and shift the emphasis from the finished artifact to the continuous and unfinished process of its creation. The exhibition thus includes elements from which the author draws inspiration, tools and materials used in the creation of works of art, but also what remains behind them.
Following in the footsteps of the work of the Group of Six Authors, who questioned the power of language and text through their visual form, Mia plays with semantics and the coexistence of two nominally dominant forms, which in this case do not mediate exclusively agitating and public messages, but introduce the observer to the sphere of the intimistic, leading him to face himself through a kind of therapeutic process, which the artist also experiences when creating the diary. In a true and raw form, she speaks about her vulnerability, paints, draws, asks witty questions about love and transience, consults and writes motivational messages, towering over each page with her personality, thus arousing an illusory closeness to the observer, towards everyday life marked by emotional alienation.
Petra Šarin
BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Mia Maraković graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2018 and obtained the title of Master of Education in Fine Arts.
So far, she has had eleven solo exhibitions and about seventy group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad.
She won the Rector's Award in 2016 for the project "Life Under the Sun", in 2017 a special award as part of the exhibition "Student International Art Biennale" in Macedonia, and in 2018 the third prize of the Homeland Museum of the City of Rovinj. In 2018, she was awarded the Commendation of the Council of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb as the most successful student in the academic year 2017/2018.
She is the leader of art workshops for children and adults in Rovinj (Mare Center), Srebrenica (Cesvi Association and Srebrenica Youth Center), Potocari (Boarding School for Children from Srebrenica and Leptir Association of Handicapped Children and Youth), Čakovec Construction High School, Zagreb (Maksimir Center for Culture and Information), Požega (Women's Penitentiary), Turopolje (Turopolje Educational Institute) and Zagreb (Faculty of Law, Department of Social Work) - 2016, 2017 and 2018.
She has created three temporary public installations: "The Tree of Plenty", "The Tunnel of Good Wishes" in 2016 and "Comb Me" in 2018. She participated in the Fourth Conference of International Expressive Art Therapy as well as in the training of the same name at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2018.
She is a member of the Croatian Association of Fine Artists in Zagreb.
The exhibition can be viewed during the working hours of the Gallery (Mon-Fri: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., 6 p.m. – 8 p.m., Saturdays: 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.) until 14.09.2021.
