In recent years Darija Dolanski Majdak creates variations of complex and above all attractive neoplasticistic paintings using the characteristic serial accumulations of regular little squares within a system of horizontals and verticals. The works presented in the exhibition “the deep Ž” again create the rich and intense grate-like construction/filling, the network of squares of identical dimensions, but different achromatic hues. The harmonic rows of nuanced little squares “move” in running flow on vertical and horizontal, identically wide bands which alternate over whole surfaces of paintings thus creating a dynamic and rhythmic pattern with powerful optic impression.
This painter’s ouvre – always self-regenerating within the relevant achievements – develops through rigorousness, self-responsibility and self-reflection, knowledge and understanding of individual and to her intimate issues of geometric styles from recent or distant history of art and especially contemporary art, but above all thanks to femininity, unique feminine intuition and refinement.
However, in spite of the before mentioned artist’s erudition, her expression doesn’t refer to any historic compositional network. Anything that happens on the paintings’ background doesn’t confront any constructivist dogma and there is no parodied-ironic construction of the prerogatives of neoplasticism. In broader perspective the references to the heritage of modernism or the poetics of revival of neo-geo and other neo-constructivist or neo-conceptual trends of recent past are missing here. Likewise, these five paintings are not the simulacrum of historic styles or geometric structures conceived at times of any historic avant-garde.
Darija’s new painting cycle is more individual, subjective and relaxed than the recent cycles “Skyline” and “High Tension” which she has recently presented to the audiences in Rijeka and Zagreb. It is even more emancipated than the experiences of constructivists, especially neoplasticists as Mondrian and van Doesburg, these recognisable points of constructivistic demonstration of rationalistic exploration of form, “hide-and-seek” and serial flow of calculated historic geometry where all geometric forms were evaluated and paintings seemed printed rather than painted.
Here even the conscious perseverance on modernistic abstract vocabulary cannot be discussed. The “geometry” is here – through clear linguistic units – only an expedient to the transparent process of thinking in order to witness the process of linguistic play within its development.
Therefore Darija can only be considered an abstract painter who is interested exclusively in the relationships between forms and colours in the visual space.
The painting grid is (in its initial stages) only partially pre-assigned and precisely stated; it is founded on the mathematical logic and progression. The feminine intuition has here a huge role, because the artist surely (at least more often than not) doesn’t know in advance the result of her painting efforts or all of its vicissitudes and transformations. Darija’s attractive structures are, hence, mostly the product of her arbitrariness and feminine intuition which is particularly accentuated in the very title of the exhibition, “the deep Ž”, that refers – as this exhibition is perceived – to the feminine intuition, sensuality and refinement.
The autodiscipline that Darija has previously imposed to herself is gradually loosening and today she is a more relaxed painter and the controlled and conscious organisation of the surface as well as the geometric calculation in these five paintings yields in front of the painter’s intuition, playfulness and improvisation in the working process in which chance might take certain part.
The great number of fluctuations of seething and heaving little squares, intermissions, caesurae, their spiral turns and shifts, changes of direction, impression of horizontal and vertical energy, interweaving and whirling of lines and dense, regular grid only partially explain this ouvre. The symbolic-visual fields are here developing from the artist’s involvement in artistic and broader spiritual movements of her times. Even the most recent paintings, that seem to be only the initiated structural and coloristic research from which new cycles of paintings could develop, create a bridge between the classic geometric expression and contemporary texture that indicates to a computer grid in colossal performance.
Today the intersecting lines in their dynamic meandering do not seem as the traditional neoplasticism, but within their elusive trajectories and accelerations which, seen through the filter of square mosaic of pixels, look like details of contemporary technologies or cybernetics, computer animation, endless prints from cyberspace, neurone paths of great computers or maze-like systems of electronic transmitters whose hidden contents are still not decoded.
Even more attractively set verticals and horizontals in dynamic meandering and elusive trajectories seem to intersect at speed of electronic plasma whose logic of rhythm we cannot discern. The dimensions of wide spaces and very sensitive motion and even the illusion of space and motion are created in a sensitive manner within the restricted action space limited by the size of painting.
The attractive system of pulsating fields in their movement on the verticals and horizontals seems to visualise Darija’s perception of happenings in the invisible, but so provocatively propulsive background of digital activity that – as visually withheld to us – noiselessly spread through electronic plasma. The impression of seething, nuanced lines pulsating like plasma over the canvas is created and it even seems that if we put our hands on the canvas we might feel their propulsiveness and the speed of friezes.
Darija explains the logic of gamuts: “The sets of three white \’A’ squares, carefully placed on three different horizontal levels on the surface of canvas creating triangle and cord, are the starting points, ‘positive’ or ’high’ and formal principle of the work. The achromatic gamuts start from there, moving symmetrically in both directions – up and down – until they meet in the black ‘deep Ž’ square: that is the new, ‘negative’ or ’deep’ centre of every gamut. Single white “A‘‘ squares are joined to this black centre at its right and left side and here the story starts over. The scheme is thus created by reading the painting from left to right. When this basic scheme, i. e. the system of the work is created, the variances are possible and desirable and it happens that the ‘aliens’ look at us from the dark (gle-psssk) or the gamuts spirally rotate from the four starting black squares in the sequence bcdefghij (KKK) thus creating the following scheme: ®A®-®abcdefghi®-®A®. In this moment the improvisation overcomes the strict system, the gamuts do not move over the whole canvas, but leave space in the background which itself, graduating from white to black, marks the takeoff from depths to sky line. The gay, short and open horizontal gamuts and occasional black and white crosses, i.e. stars (tirili-zoo) now intertwine with achromatic deep and mysterious, dynamic vertical gamuts. Police Party is a surrealistic dance of three figures; the leader is the black spiral followed and supported by two scrupulous white, vertical gamuts and two more verticals: one hurries downwards and the other upwards. The event is limited by two chessscolumns. The background is endless and timeless…”.
Even this time Darija could not resist to the temptation of colours, their warmth, liveliness and expressiveness. In the inventive play of verticals and horizontals the colours decently appear on the squares in aggressive opposition to the white, black and gray, but also in subtle coloristic nuances of blue separated from gray tones. Every now and then Darija drops light blue or red, yellow and green squares and thus breaks the achromatic composition.
But here the choice of colours and their nuances is not result of a systematic, but indeed intuitive selection; the colours are harmonised against neoplastic or any other principles of matching of colours – they are matched exclusively by the artist’s intuition (although from warm to cool hues), just like the shimmering, transparent hues and nuances of white, gray and black squares.
The planar or deep planes and playful, sparkling and pulsating superficial rhythm of the paintings are obtained by intertwining of the grids of squares, really their spatial arrangement, and even more by the carefully nuanced graduation and combining of nuances.
While other four paintings lack the background/front plane situation, by contrasting the squares of different hues on the fifth painting the artist has masterfully created the illusion of depth that forms the background of the painting from which some figures seemingly emerge forming the painting’s front plane.
Although these five paintings form a refined and sensitive ambience, Darija’s new paintings confirm not only her ambiental, but also her conceptual reflections. Namely, the recipient equipped with a Discman or mp3 player stands in front of the painting and listens to the deep and soft sounds that Darija has “arranged” to follow the logic and rhythm of gamuts spreading over the painting. The audio recordings to a large extent correspond to the visual facts on the paintings and the character of sounds follows the atmosphere because the artist conceived them as a constitutional part of the paintings.
“In the audio installation the black ’Ž’ square begins deep down in the bass clef and they rise through few octaves, including all halftones with sharps and flats, as the hues of gray follow each other. The melody is defined by the painting, because the painting – after it is composed and painted – can also be ‘played’. The character of painting sets the character of sound or instrument on which the painting is going to be played (‘the deep Ž’ is a gun shot, ‘KKK’ is slam on a wooden plank, ‘gle-psssk’ is followed by the applause)”, says Darija.
The consecutive succession of bands could be perceived as an action developing in time and the more ambitious interpretation of these works should include time as their fourth dimension as it is accentuated both by the audio version of spreading of the verticals and film on the screen.
“The opening of the film indicates that we are going to count to 12. We start from the black square, which is 1, and the arrow indicates the direction, from left to right. The male voice counts down in English – in order to create the impression of rocket launching (from the perspective of the deep Ž). When we reach the end of the gamut, i.e. the white square, the arrow turns around as on compass, it changes the direction and the inverse count down and graduation of hues follows, from right to left, to the basic black square. The last arrow, turned upwards, indicates the resumed takeoff. The film shows the basic principle and rhythm that are the foundation of every painting.”, Darija explains the film, which is the constitutive part of the exhibition.
The most recent works also declare that Darija is creator of sumptuous visual spectacles, a fantast who pulls complex and ingenious frameworks out of narrowed repertory of geometric forms.
This painting is characterised by the emphatic precision that demands a great concentration in the execution of the medley of bands. Dedicating the outstanding attention to the idea as well as the creation technology of painting, this is Darija’s personal contribution to the skill and knowledge, reflection and spontaneity, liveliness and dynamic that painting as medium allows.
The new paintings associated by the audio installation and the film again declare that Darija is the author of one of the most consistent ouvres in recent Croatian painting that from one exhibition to the other experience ever more remarkable and self-regenerating, fresh and vital versions, always executed according to the new formal solutions that are carefully placed into adequate spiritual constellations and contexts.
This painting cycle declares the fact that Darija does not wish for a moment to build a definitive, self-enclosed, perfect, ideal whole/form, because within her ouvre everything is always held up in a single phase of the research development – meaning opened – where the unsurmised possibilities of further variations of the same theme are only traced.
The new works confirm that Darija prefers research and pleasure in the play of forms to all other, seemingly more ambitious aspirations and achievements.
Darija’s always vital and fresh production of paintings regenerate her own researches that always result in new and above all persuasive formal solutions, painting cycles and constellations while she tirelessly traces further possibilities of research and building of new constructions, confirming the old truth that in the strict art of constructive approach the imagination is not only necessary, but in the ultimate consequence prevails over all system and systematic elaboration.
Ivica Župan
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deep Ž, ambient, 2004.
5 paintings: duboko Ž, gle-psssk!, KKK, tirili-zoo, Police Party, 150 x 100 cm, oil on canvas, each with associated sound sequence ( duration :36:14, 1:06:16, 0:48:28, 0:34:19, 0:40:00 min).
1-2-3 FILM-animated video-clip (duration 1:54 min, compiled of animated gif images , bitmap images which are fragments of gradually nuanced squares from the paintings.
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Darija Dolanski Majdak
Born in 1965, in Zagreb. She graduated from The Academy of fine Arts in Zagreb, Teacher Training Department mentored by Zlatko Keser.
