Essentials

Essentials are a series of drawings started in January 2017 as a part of the exhibition project Transpersonal Landscapes envisioned as a separate series that forms it’s part. Drawn in an attempt to summarize, consolidate and simplify the forms that emerged as a result of the painting project they became some sort of a summary, essence or roadmap of the project. This time in form of miniatures showing some of the basic ideas of the project and resembling system diagrams or ancient mnemonic devices¹ in forms of knots and memory boards thereby inquiring into the form of connections (points of contact or path crossings) and paths (lines) as carriers of meaning and memory as well as considering the extent to which our own bodily structures and experiences shape the construction as well as perception of abstract concepts.

Here is what I wrote about the series on April 12th 2019:

What primarily started out as a sort of enmeshment of threads, void of clear warp and weft jet still interwoven and more akin to felt looked at trough a lens of a microscope, showing gradations of lightness due to the partial translucency of white ink on black paper with points of contact or path crossings that emerged almost as separate entities due to trespassing the same point albeit several times, perhaps repeatedly again and again later became more organic, more breathable and lifelike resembling paths and meanderings as maybe a river, or blood rushing trough the veins would look like if envisioned in abstract, jet devoid of substance and the materiality of it, reduced to a representation of perhaps a mnemonic of triggers being purely two-dimensional jet still containing the same rhythm and movement, at times even surfaces of gradated translucency ranging from tensioned and almost technical, lifelike conglomerates of abstraction and fragile webs of suspended tenderness drawn out automatically on black sheets of paper.

Lena Franolić

A part of the series was exhibited in gallery Decumanus, Krk in June 2017 and afterwards on a group exhibition in Šilo that same year as well as during the group exhibition K.O.Z.M.O.G.O.N.I.J.E that took part in gallery PIKTO, in Zagreb in May 2018 as well as later on in Malinska on the group exhibition Overview of Artistic Creation of the Island of Krk in the gallery of St Nicholas.

Lena Franolić – Esencije I / Essentials I / Anfangsgründe I 2017 (akril i marker na crnom papiru / acrylic and paint marker on black paper / Acryl und Farbmarker auf schwarzem Papier, 15 x 15 cm)

Lena Franolić – Esencije II / Essentials II / Anfangsgründe II 2017 (akril i marker na crnom papiru / acrylic and paint marker on black paper / Acryl und Farbmarker auf schwarzem Papier, 15 x 15 cm)

Lena Franolić – Esencije III / Essentials III / Anfangsgründe III 2017 (akril i marker na crnom papiru / acrylic and paint marker on black paper / Acryl und Farbmarker auf schwarzem Papier, 15 x 15 cm)

Lena Franolić – Esencije IV / Essentials IV / Anfangsgründe IV 2017 (akril i marker na crnom papiru / acrylic and paint marker on black paper / Acryl und Farbmarker auf schwarzem Papier, 15 x 15 cm)

Lena Franolić – Esencije IV / Essentials IV / Anfangsgründe IV 2017

[1]^ Before they started to use writing people captured their thoughts through different ways. The two best-known examples of such records are the khipu (quipu) used by the Incas and consisting of a series of knots, while in China and Hawaii they also used similar techniques of knotting to store data. The second example comes from West Africa where certain members of the Luba people used a memory board called a lukasa consisting of a wooden board to which colored beads, pieces of shells or metal with engraved symbols were attached all for the purpose of easier recollection of memories.

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