The Reeds, 180 x 120 cm, Carolina Barbarić

The works from the series “Between the Lines” were created in Zagreb and during Carolina’s Erasmus exchange in Krakow. The cycle explores a deeper, more introspective colour palette, embodied through motifs such as Measure, Reeds, Calm Sea, and Turning Point. The series unfolds through carefully structured surfaces divided into rows, from which motifs of humans, animals, and plants emerge, seeking to transform from the physical into the metaphysical.

Within this approach, associative thinking played an essential role, allowing Carolina to expand upon the initial meanings of concepts and reinterpret them through her own distinctive perspective. Through this process, inner content and personal experience gradually filtered from within her onto the painted surface.

In creating this series, Carolina worked with oil on canvas—a medium close to her practice, carrying a rich history of artistic references while offering inspiration and encouragement for further exploration. The works were developed between Zagreb and Krakow, while at a certain stage the process focused on sketches and watercolours. These served as a more immediate and intuitive way of communicating visual ideas, which later evolved into deeper explorations of materiality, texture, paint application, and the colour relationships within the motifs.

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

Emerging from an ever-present landscape, these motifs are anchored within a setting that serves as a vital element of the cycle, connecting the works and providing them with context. Created through memory, imagination, and associative thought, the works seek to disrupt familiar and learned ways of seeing. The ultimate aim of this process is the transformation of perception—to see anew and to open a space for a renewed understanding of the world.