The exhibition Landscape – Native Ground and Adopted, which opened on October 9 in the Modern Gallery’s Studio ‘Josip Račić’ is dedicated to the ninety-year-old painter Vesna Sokolić, the doyenne of colourism, and the seventy years of her work in art. Most of the oeuvre of Vesna Sokolić was created in the studio on the family estate in the Vrapče area, on which she often stayed as a child, in the company of her grandfather, a distinguished counsellor of the governor of the province. The special connection she formed there with the landscape and the impression of nature was so strong that landscape became her favourite theme for painting. But she did not painting just the Vrapče landscape, or the “native ground landscape” but also fell in love with the islands when cruising the Adriatic, and the motifs of islands often appear in her adopted landscapes. Gulls, flowers, piles of stones are motifs that extend through almost the whole of the painterly oeuvre of Vesna Sokolić. Her teachers at the Academy, Vladimir Becić and Antun Mezdjić, considered her one of their most talented students. She also studied with Omer Mujadžić, Krsto Hegedušić, Ljubo Babić, Tomislav Krizman and Marino Tartaglia. She often exhibited her works together with her husband, whom she met as a student at the Academy. She was deeply affected by his death, and yet in spite of this, the years and problems with her health, she still went on painting and exhibiting solo. She painted in all the techniques of painting, and also transferred her paintings to ceramics.
Exhibition curated by: Ivanka Reberski