The art works of Gordana Bralić are not well known to the art public in general because of the simple fact that she is a young artist still studying at the Academy of Fine Arts. However, already her student exhibitions showed that she possesses a unique creative potential whose thoughtfulness, maturity and systematic research have already surpassed her young age. Gordana dedicated her art work to the systematic research of the geometric expression, mostly within the achromatic gamut.
This double exhibition installed in the Miroslav Kraljević Gallery and Gallery 01 confirms, of course, such a line of thought since it proves the artist’s outstanding mastery of the métier and ambiental and conceptual reflections as some kind of superstructure of the expression that is actually founded on the minimalism.
Gordana is, first of all, a painter who gives considerable weight to the idea and the technology necessary for the creation of a painted object. Already during the preparation (grounding) of canvas she carefully locates the compositional cuts and marks them with the adhesive tape. Afterwards she puts on coats of white paint and finally takes the tapes off the background. In that way the compositional cut becomes the subject of the painted surface and it stands out as a chromatic subvariance whose tone is sufficiently different to clearly mark vertical or horizontal lines that impose certain rhythmic movement onto the painted background. However, the artist is not satisfied with a completely resolved painting product, but she continues to ponder upon its superstructure.
Connecting a whole range of independent paintings, Gordana creates the series that once installed in the space form a discreet, refined and sensitive ambient. Gordana clearly marked the quintessence of her dedicated work on the tonal geometric painting in variations of the white (non)colour at these exhibitions, but at the same time she also proved that she undoubtedly masters the sensitive domain of spatial illusion. Lucidly using many experiences of the geometric and primary painting she opened a new discourse in visual arts. Installing the series of her paintings in space she builds a uniquely conceived ambient. Without strong emphasis on any of its elements, these extremely balanced ambients formed of white surfaces interrupted with discreet, regular lines, impose almost a monastic contemplation similar to that of Cistercians or Dominicans for whom the simplicity of spatial elements was an important prerequisite for reaching the spiritual purity.
The ambients of Gordana Bralić are formed by the particular geometric illusion conceived of the multiplied minimalist elements set as the source and foundation of the individual works, which introduces the unexpected third dimension that is taking us into an ascetic, immaterial, floating space with exclusively spiritual, deeply contemplative atmosphere.
Mladen Lučić
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Gordana Bralić was born in 1980 in Zagreb, Croatia. In 1998 she entered Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She is senior student at the Teacher Draining Department mentored by Ante Rašić.
