The exhibition by Lena Kramarić and dance artist Martina Tomić is conceived as a project that encompasses an exhibition of drawings by academic artist Lena Kramarić, which visually accompanies a time-limited dance performance. By leaving the exhibition open, this dance-visual event continues to reflect in the displayed works, which question the human boundlessness of movement and the bodily expression of emotions. Noticeable is the compression of the human form into the constrained format of drawings, where parts of the body follow the performer’s thoughts, hovering on the edge of controlled movements and the forces of gravity. Yet, they transcend their boundaries, metaphorically opening new frontiers of human body mobility and the feasibility of certain movements, while disregarding the physical limits of the paper.
In this way, a new perspective of the depicted figure emerges, continuing its life beyond the format of the drawing and creating further imaginary worlds. The works are dominated by clear outlines of the female body, whose vulnerability and fragility are further emphasized by the deliberate incompletion of certain parts of the drawing, leaving space for the viewer to contribute their own creative imagination to the work. Shading with a paper napkin, a recognizable feature of Lena’s artistic signature, creates spaces for contemplation that embody the performer’s thoughts. Whether it involves a floral arrangement or imagined idyllic landscapes from festive decorative napkins, these settings point to an intangible barrier between dreams and reality, between routine and the creation of new worlds, between the established steps of everyday life and leaps into the creative realms of dance scenes that represent a distinct microcosm.
During Martina Tomić’s dance performance, in which the artists’ children also participate, adding a heightened personal note to the entire performance, they are surrounded by Lena Kramarić’s drawings arranged in the space, layered one above the other like strips of public city proclamations. The changes in dance movements are accompanied by still moments that celebrate the human body—not in an Olympian glorification of the most perfectly executed movement, but rather by honoring its strength as revealed in scars, cuts, and wounds that bear traces of the past or the consequences of motherhood. The human face here is hidden from view or left unidentified, placing emphasis on our intimate moment of connection with ourselves through movement, exploring our own bodies, and feeling their pulse.
The resulting introspection of these activities resembles a moment of prayer, a withdrawal from the surroundings, and a dedication to personal emotions and thoughts. The world of thoughts is not chronologically structured or rationally organized but rather a jumble of random sentences and interwoven images, which the artists evoke through their media—whether in the alternating movements of Martina Tomić or the shifting frames of the human body in Lena Kramarić’s drawings. The guiding thread of the exhibited works is an homage to the female body and its strength and resilience, intertwined with the story of a woman and her artistic achievements through creative work, as well as the woman as a mother whose children continue this thread as active participants in the exhibition process, whose creative contributions are encouraged and embraced.
Jelena Tamindžija Donnart
The exibition is open on 1 of July 2023. at ART BY THE SEASIDE GALLERY,
65, Triq Il-Mina Tax-Xatt, Senglea L-Isla, Malta