Beyond Silence exhibition by Maša Bajc in Gallery Živi Atelje DK

New gallery program in 2017 at Živi Atelje DK (Living Atelier DK) starts with the opening of the solo exhibition of Maša Bajc.

Maša Bajc Kamenjak

“The series Beyond Silence is in its essence a testament to time, space, emotion and mortality. Maša Bajc presents in a series of photographs a non-linear exploration of her own freedom and idea of sanctuary, with a search and question of the limits of our own perception of space and reality and what creates them. In this she has created works which exist in a seemingly paradoxically tangible, realistic, experiential but also distant, ephemeral world.

MAŠA BAJC RAIN

Observing Maša’s photographs, it is hard to escape the impression they exist as suspensions of moments on the edge of movement, whose existence can be felt as they are not only visual stimuli as much as tangible and audible. But every deeper observation also creates and intertwines a magnificent moment of self-awareness – a silent moment of hypersensitive and hyper realistic sense of space around one self but also of one self, a feeling simultaneously abstract and very realistic. This meditative aspect is also the basis of these works as it creates a sanctuary, space for research, contemplation and imagination, where time becomes a witness. But time also gains multiple symbolism which passes through tangential points of contact with nature, mortality and transience. The phenomenon was probably best described by Susan Sontag: “Photographs are memento mori. To photograph is to participate in someone’s mortality, vulnerability, variability. The very carving and suspension of the moment makes every photograph witness the merciless melting of time…” Time becomes a part of that mortality here, and mortality a part of nature, creating a sort of elementary circle of life. Nature in Maša’s photographs dominates as a bridge between reality and inner condition, in which all elements (water, fire, wind, earth) symbolically represent sensory, tactile but also meditative experiences which build imaginary spaces, spaces to find contemplation in an inner state and in a moment of silence. Maša has in her works encompassed the timeless connection of man with nature, where a moment beyond the silence becomes the moment we exist in, and comprehend the wholeness of the world (outer or inner) in its most vivid state.” (From the Exhibition Preface by Ana-Marija Petričević)

Maša Bajc Smoke

Maša Bajc was born in 1980, in Čakovec. She mostly uses photography and similar mediums in her artistic expression. Her work is often rooted in personal experiences of nature and spatiality of the world that surrounds us. Following her studies of economy at the University of Zagreb she obtained a post graduate degree, MFA in Imaging Arts, at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. She has had many collective and solo exhibitions in Croatia and internationally. She currently works as an assistant professor of photography at the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Maša is a member of the Croatian Association of Artists.