The Present Ones exhibition by academic painter and printmaker Letricija Linardić, curated by NMMU museum advisor Željko Marciuš, opens on May 5 at the Josip Račić Gallery. It brings ten richly colored photographic images from the artist’s eponymous 2024 cycle to Zagreb audiences created in 2024, using photographs by Ivan Vranjić. In the foreword to the accompanying catalogue, Željko Marciuš emphasizes that Letricija Linardić’s exhibited works should be interpreted in an interdisciplinary manner, Linardić’s optimisations therefore demand an interdisciplinary approach, one that encompasses psychology, anthropology and sociology. He adds that the artist offers the interpreter of her visual assemblages an insight into her recent cycle, noting that the conceptual starting point of “The Present Ones” is a kind of homage to the so-called Victorian invisible mothers, women whose bodies were concealed by fabrics, making them little more than a constituent part of the overall scenography of the visible scene – what was once entirely commonplace now reads as something altogether bizarre.

The exhibition has been made possible with financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City Office
for Culture and Civil Society of the City of Zagreb. and will remain open until May 29, 2026.

Letricija Linardić was born in 1971 in Rijeka. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Rijeka, in the Department of Fine Arts, specialising in printmaking under Prof. Josip Butković. She went on to obtain her Master’s degree in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana under Prof. Lojze Logar, and her doctorate at the Faculty of Education in Ljubljana under the supervision of Tonka Tacol, PhD and Janez Vogrinc, PhD. She works primarily in the medium of printmaking, exploring its various manifestations and its impact on society. Her practice also encompasses photography, art installation, artistic action, collaborative works and artists’ books, among other forms. She engages with themes relating to formal artistic problems, such as the use of contemporary technologies in dialogue with traditionally determined art, as well as socially engaged works through which she examines social, moral and related themes. Since 1994, she has shown her work in numerous solo and group shows, as well as curatorial projects in Croatia and abroad, both by open submission and by invitation. Her work has been presented in significant art institutions across Croatia and internationally, and has featured in numerous exhibitions offering an overview of contemporary Croatian printmaking. She is the recipient of five artistic awards. She works as a full professor of printmaking at the Academy of Applied Arts in Rijeka.

Images: Letricija Linardić The Present Ones 2, 4, 8, 2024 / photo Ivan Vranjić / print on Hahnemühle Photo Luster 260 g/m2 / 100 x 100 cm