I am delighted to share that I was awarded Second Prize in the Ex Tempore category at the 39th Mandrać – Mandracchio International Painting Competition in Volosko.
The event once again transformed the historic fishing village into an open-air exhibition space, bringing together more than 150 artists from Croatia and abroad. Working within the limited time frame of the Ex Tempore format encouraged me to approach the work differently from my usual studio process.
Drawing from the visual language of my ongoing Ultramarine series, I reduced the landscape to a concentrated spatial sign: an ultramarine square containing a simplified silhouette of Volosko’s mandrać, its small historic harbour. The image was developed through an experimental graphic process combined with collage, using acrylic-painted Chinese paper.
Rather than describing the landscape, the work attempts to retain its trace. Architecture, sea and memory are reduced to fragments, surfaces and intervals, allowing recognizable place to move toward abstraction. The ultramarine field becomes both space and boundary, a place in which the physical landscape is transformed into an internal, remembered one.
The Second Prize was awarded by the professional jury consisting of Claudio Frank, Daina Glavočić and Milena Zlatar.
