Announcement of the exhibition by Zoran Crnčević

Announcement: The exhibition of paintings by Zoran Crnčević “Touch” will be held on Tuesday, November 18th
2025 in the Gallery of Queen Katarina Kosača in the Croatian House of Herceg Stjepan Kosača with
starting at 7 p.m.

“The process underlies Zoran Crnčević’s artistic oeuvre. Although primarily based on the acquired
With an academic degree in sculpture, Crnčević explores the medium of drawing, spatial installation,
sculptural, photography and multimedia performance form. The exhibition titled
"Touch" is the sublimation of the aforementioned forms of visual art. The process, or rather the process
in the works of Zoran Crnčević, art refers to the time of the linear movement of color from
from the top to the bottom of the canvas. Initiated by "touch", the paint moves down the canvas by gravity 
and leaves a trace of the path in the form of a coloristic drawing. Crnčević creates a process through repetition
movement of paint across the canvas, creating a series of lines through which the underlying painted layer can be seen
pictures. For the underpainted part of the picture, the author states that it symbolizes the vividness of urban colors
conglomerates in Latin America. Linear structures that extend vertically to
with symbolic "facades" they reflect a kind of order in the visual order of the painting. In the second
part of the cycle, the paint sinks towards the canvas in a free fall, the so-called "dripping". The process is
more dynamic with much more gesture. The paint no longer rests on the canvas, but on it
manifests itself in the form of a stain and, through the movement of the author, creates linear structures of different directions and
path. In both cases, we witness the consequences of a slower or more dynamic process of creation
of a work of art, "touches". The author's intention in terms of technique, or artistic structure
works, refers to achieving the effect of ink or watercolor when using oil paints, glaze
in a technical sense. One of the starting points of the author's intention is to, through his work,
manifests the liquid state of water, inspired by the literature of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In
In a symbolic sense, the author's intention is to show the differences in literary styles and
themes of Latin American writers (surreal, mystical) in counterpoint with literary
the "ambience" of writers from Europe, or rather Southeastern Europe (darkness, decay,
realism). In addition to literature, the inspiration for the cycle "Touch" refers to the author's photographs
water, more precisely, photographs of plants under the water surface. Plants seen through clear water,
they seem surreal, as if the world is being observed through some magical filter, flowing and over
which flows. The cycle "Touch" vividly depicts the world of water, swamps, florals and
the color of the South American jungle. 
What particularly attracts attention in the exhibition "Touch" is the smell of burning and blackness
burnt wood surfaces. Open flame burnt chips periodically arranged in
space interrupts the setting and aesthetics of coloristic gestures. The blackness of the ashes, according to the author
are interruptions of reality, sociological and existentialist…” (Dalibor Nikolić)

Short biography
I was born in 1974 in Banja Luka, a medium-sized city in the then Socialist Republic of
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I was successful in school, and as the eighties
nearing the end, my father believed I was on the right track to becoming an engineer
in electrical engineering, which was then considered a prestigious profession in a country governed by
Marxist dogma and authoritarian party administration. However, it turns out that
The communists who led the country after Tito's death were ideologically closer to fascism than
Marxism. As a teenager, the breakup of Yugoslavia came as a great shock to me. After
years of communist indoctrination and the belief that the elders and party leadership know everything,
I have lost faith in the future and a better tomorrow. Unable to accept the transition of society
against ethnic hatred and tribalism, I fought for several years, spending time reading
books and being interested in photography.
In 1993, while the civil war in Bosnia was in full swing, my father discouraged me
to leave Bosnia and escape the war, so in July 1994 I was drafted into the army.
I spent a year and a half in the army, fortunately surviving the trauma of war. When the war in Bosnia
finished in December 1995, I was discharged from the army. Shortly after, I started attending
drawing and sculpture lessons with the academic sculptor Slobodan Dragaš, and again
engaged in photography. In October 1997 I moved to Kosovo to begin
studies art at the Faculty of Arts in Pristina. Shortly after completing the first
academic year, war broke out in Kosovo and I was forced to flee, first to Belgrade, and then
then to Great Britain, where I graduated from Wimbledon College of Art, University of
the Arts London, in June 2003. During my studies, I received support from members
of the Royal Society of Sculptors, and in 2003 I started working for the Archgallery in Islington,
London, where I helped curate an exhibition by MA students at Goldsmiths College of
Art, London.
I returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the fall of 2004 and founded the art collective RACE.
with a group of like-minded people from Banja Luka. In the next eight years, we presented
several avant-garde installations and performances for local audiences, working closely with
The Museum of Contemporary Art and the City of Banja Luka. In October 2006, KulturKontakt
Austria awarded me a three-month artist residency in Vienna, and in 2015 my
the work was presented in KulturKontakt Art magazine. My works are part of the Trinity collections
Laban Conservatoire and Museum of Contemporary Art in Banja Luka. Photos of mine
recent paintings were published in Wotisart and Into the Void magazines in 2019, and in Art
Reveal Magazine in February 2020.

The exhibition remains open until December 2, 2025.