Wendy Vernić: V/V
"In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora" – Publius Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoseon The title of the exhibition Vendi Vernić V/V carries several layers of meaning. The most obvious and legible "at first" are the initials of this young artist. V is also a sign for the Roman numeral 5, which reminds the author, who received her master's degree with high honors (magna cum laude) at the Department of Graphic Arts, ... Read More
"In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora"
- Publius Ovid Naso, Metamorphoseon
The title of the exhibition Vendi Vernić V/V carries several layers of meaning. The most obvious and legible "at first" are the initials of this young artist. V is also a sign for the Roman numeral 5, which reminds the author, who received her master's degree magna cum laude from the Department of Graphic Arts, of the way prints are numbered. If, on the other hand, we observe 5/5 as a mathematical operation, we come to number 1, that is, Venda's first solo exhibition. The symbolism of the number 5 as a perfect whole can be found in the ancient Greeks, who, in Aristotle's time, believed that the world consists of 5 elements – fire, water, earth, air and ether, and the mystical dimension to this number was given by medieval alchemists. And just like an alchemist – a master of transformations, in drawings, and drawing is the most direct, almost intuitive medium for this artist, Vendi Vernić transforms her thoughts, fears and doubts into a plethora of hybrid animal beings resembling those from medieval bestiaries. This metamorphosis occurs synchronously in the author's stream of consciousness and on paper, where it is, in an almost mannerist style, personified and immortalized in the form of forms that arise and disappear, flow fluidly from one to another, creating somewhat subversive forms that can be found in children's drawings, which "destroy the deceptions of reason and reveal an irrational order". Such an irrational order is actually absurdity, absence and asymmetry – an infinitely mutating narrative that destabilizes the classical mechanisms of order and symmetry, and which, in turn, contains an almost therapeutic liberating moment of rejecting one's own insecurities and doubts, transferring them to a blank piece of paper. The Wild Beast What Does It Mean is an archetypal character and personification of the same insecurities and doubts that haunt us, and to which the artist approaches self-ironically and with subtle humor. Namely, doubt, that beast that "jumps out of the bush" when we least expect it, is drawn by the bush, with the inscription "comes out of the bush", alluding to all those moments in life in which, unprepared, it "jumps us". Humor in Vendi Vernić's drawings is a product of absurdity. It is humor that arises from the deliberate undermining of the recipient's expectations, flirting with primitive art, but also with Dadaist principles, which we read in a continuous game of violation of cause-and-effect relationships and meaningful reasoning. Vendi Vernić also undermines the observer's expectation by using text in her drawings, which she uses to "clarify" the meaning of the drawing to the observer, while in fact this text, often, only intensifies the feeling of absurdity. For example, next to the drawing of a winged lion from Venice, Vendi writes "Cats don't like water" or, on the other hand, she draws trees next to which she writes fragments of Emilie Simon's poem "Song of the Storm" "Earth shaking, big dark clouds forming".
And while in the drawings that can be placed in the period of the artist's stay in Venice, as well as those of larger format, created as a result of the drawing marathon at the Academy, the dominant motifs are mysticism, hybridity and, often, amorphousness, in the drawings Taurids, North Pole, Rabbit Anatomy and Perseus we can read astrological-mythological motifs, to which she gives a slightly greater degree of figurativeness. When choosing materials for her works, Vendi Vernić chooses the unorthodox ones – she turns pieces of test prints thrown at the Academy of Fine Arts into drawings of smaller formats, which she calls Postcards from Italy, which she creates while on a student exchange in Venice, while larger formats, among other things, she constructs by gluing together pieces of paper found at the Venice Biennale. Like the Persian carpet weavers who, according to legend, deliberately inserted some small and almost imperceptible mistakes into the weaving in order to point out the imperfection of man, this young artist, through her drawings, speaks about the imperfection of form, coincidence, and "cracks" within the structure as a deviation from rigidity and established, predetermined norms.
Mirna Rul
BIOGRAPHY
Vendi Vernić was born in 1991 in Zagreb. After graduating from the School of Applied Arts and Design, in 2010 she enrolled in the university undergraduate study of graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts. She spends one semester studying at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia as part of the Erasmus SMS program. She completed her graduate studies in 2015 in the class of Assoc. prof. Svjetlan Junaković, graduating with honors Magna cum Laude. So far, she has participated in several juried group exhibitions and art workshops in Croatia and abroad: 6th Croatian Biennale of Illustration, Klovićevi dvori, Zagreb (2016); NEW NOW online exhibition – ELIA Artschools organization (2015); 36 Mountains, Greta Gallery, Zagreb (2015); Living Water Narrates: Aquamarine Selection, Children's Book Fair in Bologna; Klovićevi dvori Gallery in Zagreb (2015); 3rd Croatian Triennial of Self-Portraits ''Identities'', Prica Gallery, Samobor (2014); ''Graphic Spring'', Centre of Graphic Arts, Maribor, Slovenia (2014); Venientes ALU, PM Gallery – HDLU, Zagreb (2014); First International Triennial of Student Drawing Katowice, Rondo Sztuki Gallery, Katowice, Poland (2014); First International Biennial of Student Drawing Sofia, Bulgaria (2012); Trnava Poster Triennial, Slovakia (2012). She has won several awards (the First International Biennial of Student Drawing Sofia, the Purchase Award of the University of Zagreb) and commendations for her work in the field of drawing and design.
Contact: vendi.vv@gmail.com
