Measurement, 140x100 cm, Carolina Barbarić

The works from the series “Between the Lines” were created in Zagreb and during my Erasmus exchange in Krakow. This series explores a deeper colour palette, which became embodied through motifs such as Measure, Reeds, Calm Sea, and Turning Point.

The works communicate through carefully treated surfaces divided into rows, from which motifs of humans, animals, and plants emerge, striving to transform from the physical into the metaphysical. Within this approach, associative thinking played an important role, allowing me to deepen the initial meanings of given concepts and reinterpret them in my own way. Through this process, everything that existed within me—my inner thoughts, experiences, and emotions—could gradually filter onto the painted surface.

While creating this series, I worked with oil on canvas, as it is a medium close to me and one that carries a rich history filled with references that continue to encourage and inspire my further development.

The works were created between Zagreb and Krakow. For a period of time, my process was strongly focused on sketches and watercolours, which allowed me to communicate and articulate ideas in a faster and more immediate way. From these initial studies, I moved towards developing deeper layers of meaning, exploring the materiality, texture, paint application, and colour relationships within the motifs themselves.

Compositionally, the works from the “Between the Lines” cycle are structured through rows, between which the central motif appears—a human, an animal, or a plant. These motifs carry a message that is visually and metaphorically read “between the lines,” emphasising the connection between the literal and the transformative, the rational and the irrational.

The motifs emerge from an ever-present landscape, which is also an essential bearer of the cycle, connecting the works as a whole and providing them with context. The works were painted through memory, imagination, and associative thinking, with the intention of breaking through the boundaries of learned and habitual ways of seeing. The ultimate goal of the process is the transformation of the subject—to see again and to open oneself to a renewed perception.