News & Press // CreArt News

The De/Construction of Painting project fosters and explores contemporary artistic practices within the context of the visual arts hub in Eastern Germany, Leipzig, which has transformed into a global artistic center with a focus on the painting scene. The starting point of this project lies in individual and group artistic and research-artistic work across various media, emphasizing the redefinition of the painting as a cultural construct within the post-socialist and post-transitional societies of Eastern Germany (Saxony) and Croatia. The project's aim is to showcase contemporary Croatian artists in Germany and encourage their activity within European and international contexts.

Based on the theories of German art historian Hans Belting and the painting heritage of Eastern Germany and Croatia, the De/Construction of the Painting residency program addresses the following questions:

• To what extent does the concept of the painting remain a cultural construct within various dichotomies (West-East, industrial-postindustrial)?
• How do the media shaping the painting correspond to concepts of representing different realities?
• What in an painting is individual, and what is symbolic or universal?

Part of this year's residency program was realized within the EU project CreART 3.0, a European network of medium-sized cities aimed at exchanging experiences and best practices to promote contemporary art through a continuous transnational mobility program for emerging artists, curators, and cultural workers. The goal is to maximize the economic, social, and cultural contributions creativity can bring to local communities. As part of the EU CreART 3.0 project, four residencies took place in Leipzig in 2024, each lasting five weeks and including two Croatian and two international artists from the network’s cities.

In this year’s De/Construction of Painting project edition, part of the CreART 3.0 initiative, the participating artists were Ante Dujmović (HR), Barbara Muhr (DE), Petra Šabić (HR), and Daria Titova (UA).

The role of cultural agent, responsible for organizing all necessary details during the residency and managing open studios, is held by Bela Rölcke.

• The first open studio event took place on October 11, 2024, at 4:30 PM.
• The second was held on November 23 and 24, 2024 (11am-5pm), at Jochen Hempel Galerie’s Colorado Projects.

Project Website:

https://residencyleipzig.hdlu.hr/

Artist Profiles:

Ante Dujmović (HR)
Born in Zagreb in 1999, he studied metal design at the School of Applied Arts and Design and graduated with a bachelor's degree in New Media from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2022. A multidisciplinary artist, he explores various forms of art and materials. Since 2023, he has been a member of the Croatian Association of Fine Artists (HDLU) and has participated in numerous exhibitions and projects both in Croatia and abroad.

Barbara Muhr (DE)
A visual artist working predominantly in large figurative paintings and screen prints. Her colorful works combine realistic yet mostly fictional portraits with abstract environments and overlaps. She uses a mix of acrylic, oil paints, colored pencil drawings, and tapes to explore layers of physical and psychological states. Inspired by classical art history and literature, she transforms allegories and iconographies of love and death into contemporary themes of growth and identity crises. She works in Regensburg, exhibiting across Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic, and has won several art awards in Germany.

Petra Šabić (HR)
She completed elementary and secondary school in Bjelovar and holds two degrees from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. In 2019, she graduated in Fine Arts under Professor Gordana Balić, and in 2021 in Painting under Professor Ksenija Turčić. Petra received a Rector's Award with colleagues for the Creative-Artistic Workshops Cycle “UMMA – Artistic Mama”, a collaboration with Zagreb's Children's Home and the Mother’s Home. Her solo exhibition debut, Zbiranja, took place in Bjelovar in 2018. By the end of 2022, she had exhibited in 10 solo and 27 group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad (India, Vietnam, Serbia). She has also created illustrations for international publications and projects and collaborates with Zagreb's Museum of Contemporary Art.

Daria Titova (UA)
A 20-year-old artist from Kharkiv, Ukraine, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design from the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her portfolio includes several projects, such as the design for the 2-Euro coin “Glory to Ukraine” (2022), winner of a wallpaper competition for a kindergarten built by Estonia in Ukraine (2023), and murals for Health Center 2's new hospital (2024). Currently, she works on an animated educational platform for the same health center and has been featured in an Adidas store in Tallinn (2024).