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Where is the soul?
Date From:
17.11.2022
Gallery Flora 7pm
Where is the soul?
Where is the soul?Children’s room is the first space with which we identify in life, in which wedevelop our own selves, between the blurred boundaries of the landscape ofimagination and the landscape of reality. What exactly is reality if a matter isnever just a matter, but we attach meaning to it ourselves? Since the ancienttimes, surrounded by phenomena that were unknown to him, man tended towithdraw to other worlds. Whether it was animism, the Greek and Roman godswho governed our worlds and lives, the will of God or the power of nature, mansought refuge from inexplicable phenomena and his own inability to understandall abstract concepts by creating an additional layer of reading of that same reality,enveloping it in mythology. These readings have been passed down forgenerations, through myths, legends, heroic stories, hagiography, finding theirown channels of flow of ideas in literature, painting, music.Jasmina Runje takes her first steps towards creating a bigger story, openinga subconscious level where the first sparks of imagination come up, awakeningthe tones that create a further rhythm, leading to a larger composition. Runje’sworld is only seemingly naïve, unlimited by the boundaries that the artist questionswith every stroke of the brush. The painter’s microcosm is filled with ostensiblyunrelated motifs and beings woven from different parts of her own andother people’s bodies. It is the journey of a child who creates imaginary worldsin his or her own room as soon as the lights are off, traveling with the lightnessof Aladdin’s carpet, into the infinity of interpretations of everything that is seen.The ink on paper technique allows the artist to create solid and clear contrastsin which the curious combinations of motifs are even more emphasized. In thespace that like a window takes us to completely new worlds, there is a horrorvacui in which characters, limbs, details and symbols are entwined like Picasso’sGuernica, like intricate marionettes that were worked, and then abandoned, byan invisible hand.In Runje’s artworks, everything is brought to life, and everything strugglesto assume a certain role: the artist says that she finds the soul in everything, notjust in living beings; she discovers the beat of life in all material things as well,detecting the silent whisper of their existence. She carefully listens to the soulthat exists in everything, even in abstract notions. Love, memory and story canalso have a soul, without necessarily having an organic form. Yet, we tend to giveour own recollections a certain form and keep them alive; every time we recalla certain moment, we revive it in that form of memory.The entwining of moments and motifs is a characteristic of a fragmentedmemory where we join scattered ideas and moments, trying to gather all of theminto a coherent story. But this coherence escapes complete framing, and flaresup like a smoldering fire.The artist herself says she is not sure where the story will take her once itbegins. Like in a word of mouth, in telling the story the narrator always adds adetail of his own.  
The beings that inhabit this world are mythological mermaids, people depictedas half-birds, and their flight brings them a sense of freedom and boundlessness.They are animals whose species we cannot define; they are imaginarycities with which she pays homage to naïve artists, but also to Dubrovnik artistswho have painted their own interpretations of the city, such as Stanić with hisfuturistic depictions.The interconnected motifs point to the original association of dreams in whichconcrete things or phenomena from our reality, such as the Helena furniture thatthe artist had in her room, or pea pods that she often cleaned with her grandmotherin childhood, come into dialogue with the lavish imagination of the newlycreated combinations. In this thematic yarn, place and time are entwined, andthe boundaries of clear recognizability of the shapes are erased. Once conceivedin its original form, the depicted figure begins to acquire other people’s hands,animal legs, or turns into a mermaid with sharp teeth who emanates a certaineeriness. Runje is particularly inclined to blend the concepts of the collectiveunconscious, animus and anima. In analytical psychology, Jung distinguishesanimus, which denotes a subconscious male side of woman, and anima, a subconsciousfeminine side of man, stating that these two concepts are the primaryanthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. This theme particularlyconcerns a hermaphroditic heart, the heart of a person who has the functionsand organs of both sexes. In this depiction, a man’s head appears, with femaleorgans coming out of its cry – breasts covered with a Renaissance collar. While amermaid, as a symbol of seduction and firmness, devours the hand, the compositionof the work relies on the depiction of the city and the hills. Like Boccaccio’sDecameron, where the plot moves away from the city, Runje’s city disappearstoo, making room for endless hills. Although recognizable architectural elementssuch as roofs, cemeteries or tombstones are quite common, the nature in Runje’sartworks is different because it is enshrouded in a veil of magic. The image of theforest in Cage’s Breath evokes children’s perception of a forest as a mysteriousand frightening place that causes uncertainty. These insecurities and scenes ofmythological beings that evoke consternation begin to acquire certainty, withthe elements of drawn handles, such as the handles of chairs, a table or antiquefurniture. Every globe that leads us into fantasies has a solid pedestal, and Runje’sthought is on the path of seeking a firm support of unbridled imagination. In thisway, however, imagination is tamed and stabilized, symbolizing a man who livesin his thoughts, dreams and hopes, but always standing firmly on the ground.The world of fantastic creatures where metamorphoses take place is a specificmicrocosm created in the demanding technique of ink on paper, to which Runjeremains loyal, and which can fully evoke the contrasts of Dante’s depths of helland innocent whiteness. Runje’s forms, constantly subject to metamorphoses,become totems, symbols of ideas, refuges of souls, taking us to otherworlds ofendless variations, which represent only a segment of the many interpretationscoming from the painter’s unlimited thematic repertoire.Jelena Tamindžija Donnart

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