Nataša Ljubetić Tomić / Phantom Vibrations

Nataša Ljubetić Tomić’s painting oeuvre can be treated as a work-in-progress and is a result of multiple years of work, continuously upgraded with new motifs, themes and techniques. Therefore, it is appropriate to seek the roots of this exhibition among the author’s earlier works. With regards to the motif of communication in general, talking about “Phantom Vibrations” exhibition may, in a certain way, be equal to talking about “Traces” (2011) or “Plehin put bb” (2008) exhibitions, both held at Salon Galić.

On Theme and Motifs

The inception of the exhibition is actually in the photographs taken by the artist during travels, in a time when communication, due to mobility and distance from the “centre”, was more difficult than today, making contemporary human obsession with technological advancements and virtual communication more prominent. The artist transferred these notions to her paintings using so called digital colour, one that cannot be found in our reality, making her landscapes seem washed out. Although one may think otherwise, her motifs were carefully chosen, and subsequently, if we carefully analyse the works, we can deduce that the aesthetic criterion is very important in this case. The motifs symbolise outside world we do not usually pay attention to because our focus lies rather on what is on the screen/screens in front of us. Because of that, exhibited exteriors are annulled, toned down, supressed, slightly devoid of emotion. Landscapes and architecture are the main themes of this cycle, however, as opposed the author’s prior work, there are no individual objects. Her works look as if the time has stopped. Although in this cycle the author does not categorically decide in favour of one or other world, but rather, as she says, “testifies about her own time” through her experiences, it is possible to argue that these works are not a critique of technological domination and virtual world or life, but rather its commentary.

The primary motif of this exhibition, materialised through the dichotomy of virtual world and reality, is communication. The author deals with the role of technology in individual’s everyday life, both on personal, cognitive, and social level. She uses technology to experience architecture and landscapes visually, translating them onto transparencies afterwards, directly evoking social networks as one of the most widespread communication providers in the exhibited triptych. The messages it comprises are authentic, reproduced in original state and represent subtle contextualisation of alienation caused by the use of technology. Thus, the screen simultaneously becomes both an obstacle and the only means of entering the outside world, proof of the aforementioned encumbrance and obsession with technology, i.e. phantom vibration.

Short Note on Visual Language

Art historians as well as other authors have already written about Nataša Ljubetić Tomić’s specific artistic technique in exhibition forewords.[1] It is a result of multiannual research and experiments, leading the author to hold several public lectures on that subject. Despite the fact that sometimes we cannot clearly recognise the movement of a paintbrush and that it often resembles some kind of print, the artist’s work is painterly in every sense of the word. Works painted using liquid polish on one or two transparencies are based on detailed sketches. Afterwards, she removes some parts by “scratching” them to gain desired effects in the form of colour combinations in different layers. Her technique was a subject of Sandi Bulimbašić’s text on the occasion of “Plehin put bb” exhibition, as well as Vedran Perkov’s text for the “Traces” exhibition. This specific technique is partially a result of the author’s nine-year residence in Italy, where she spent her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata and Animation School in Rome.[2]

Finally, questions raised by this cycle are not “exclusively” artistic; they concern a social problem spread on everyday level, the one that Dario Šošić in the description of Nataša’s latest Rovinj exhibition defines as, to paraphrase, an illusion that prevents us from experiencing true communication and quality relations we chronically lack.[3]

Anđelko Mihanović

[1] http://www.galum.hr/izlozbe/izlozba/1259/ 6.11.2016

[2] http://hulu-split.hr/izlozbe/traces/?lang=en

http://hulu-split.hr/izlozbe/plehin-put-bb/?lang=en  7.11.2016

[3] http://www.culturenet.hr/default.aspx?id=71756 7.11.2016