Ana Sladetic
Ana Sladetic graduated in painting in 2009 and received her doctorate in 2016 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has won several awards and recognition for her work and has participated in more than 200 group exhibitions and 20 solo exhibitions. She has taken numerous artistic residencies in Germany, Belgium, France, Finland, and the USA. She holds the title of associate professor at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek, Croatia.
In her work, Ana Sladetic is a trailblazing artist. She is inspired by today's world of communications and available technologies in dialogue with traditional media, as well as the important influence of traditional art on modern life. Recent, intimate scenes from her personal life are perceived by the artist as notes with which she materializes the thinking process that later grows into conceptually more complex work. Her recent work features technological achievements that include a series of drawings in which line turns into sound; interactive images that explore how thermoactive paint reacts to the warmth of the palm of a hand; sculptures that represent how sound vibrations are transmitted through the human body; as well as interactive tapestries and watercolors in which the characters from the painting are transformed into 3D animation. The innovations she brings to her work do not decrease the quality of her paintings. On the contrary, they complement each other and make her work particularly interesting.
Each painting is a combination of research in both technological and artistic terms. Is it intended from the beginning, from the very idea or does it come in the process of painting?
AS: When I have inspiration - I observe the subject that I want to portray, then I am interested in the position of the observers, and how they will experience that subject. Can the observer get another role - co-creator? Because I believe that presence before the actual work is extremely important. Thus, in both series of works that interact, it was conceived from the beginning to have a technological and artistic approach.
The pictures are full of different motifs that are carefully painted, especially floral motifs. They appear in most of your works and are presented in different forms, colors, and roles.
AS: The floral motifs that appear have a transferred meaning. At the beginning of the isolation, we could not touch the flower buds and the surroundings - due to the impossibility of leaving the house. Bouquets have another meaning - we usually give them as gifts in festive moments: when we want to mark a special event. For this reason, they were placed in the paintings as reminders of the glorification of life and the living, but at the same time of the present transience.
