Maja Ruznic - New Now New York Tuesday, March 12, 2024 | Phillips

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  • Maja Ruznic’s Visitors appears as a watery reflection of memory: de-materialized outlines suggest vague apparitions, individuals with far-off faces in faded landscapes. The artist’s subtractive process involves first building up layers of acrylic and oil paint to then sand the pigment away, revealing the canvas beneath and creating a physical manifestation of unspecified loss.i Like Rorschach test ink blots, the forms – through their implied outlines – reveal one’s inner world. In this manner, Ruznic’s shaky forms can be seen to reflect the viewer’s inner self; discerning the boundaries and nature of each shape becomes an act of psychological interpretation.

     

    The artist’s stain-like, shadowy depictions lie somewhere between figuration and abstraction, conjuring sentiments both universal and personal. Born in Bosnia but displaced by the Bosnian War, Ruznic’s experience of displacement is echoed in the gestural strokes of her work. These blurred shapes, which appear as washed-out recollections, depict “the experiences of her early life with shared trauma, fleeing and loss reflected in the phenomenon of immigration.” The images she creates owe a strong artistic debt to her ancestry and childhood, with inspiration being drawn from sources such as Slavic folklore, shamanistic visions, sacred geometry, psychoanalysis, and alchemy. Ruznic calls her fluid and flowing style “the drunken hand” – through which she conjures mystical visual encounters with the psyche.ii

     

    Having begun her career using ink and watercolor, the artist now paints using oil, but her paintings continue to conjure the loose atmospheric effects of water-based pigments. The rich surface effects of Ruznic’s canvases lushly capture something deeply mystical. These blurred forms, which bleed into one another in variegated hues, conjure emotions both ancient and personal. The saturated fields of color explore the mythic and the human which melt into one under the artist’s hand.

     

    Recent exhibitions include Maja Ruznic: Geometry of Exile (2023) at Karma, Los Angeles, Maja Ruznic: Consulting with Shadows (2022) at Karma, New York, and Migration of Spirits (2022) at the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque. Ruznic will also be participating in this year’s upcoming Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better than the Real Thing.

     

    i “In the Sliver of the Sun: Maja Ruznic,” Hardwood Museum, August 11, 2022, online.

    ii Curator Nicole Dial-Kay quoted in Dena Miller, “Maja Ruznic at the Harwood,” Taos News, March 11, 2021, online.

    iii “Maja Ruznic,” Tamarind Institute, February 7, 2024, online.

    • Provenance

      Conduit Gallery, Dallas
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Dallas, Conduit Gallery, Speaking in Tongues, December 5, 2020–January 2, 2021

2

Visitors

signed, titled and dated ""Visitors" Ruznic Maja 2020" on the reverse
oil on canvas
60 x 50 in. (152.4 x 127 cm)
Painted in 2020.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$25,000 - 35,000 

Sold for $57,150

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
 

New Now

New York Auction 12 March 2024