Paintings Under Infrared Light: Beyond the Visible

Creative part of the dissertation by

Dijana Nazor

opening on Tuesday, 19^th April 2016 at 7.00pm

Bačva Gallery

Croatian Association of Fine Artists in Zagreb,

Mentors: professor of art Igor Rončević

and Jana Žiljak Vujić, PhD

A word of introduction by

Branka Hlevnjak and Ferdinand Meder

19^th-21^st April 2016

 

Dijana Nazor presents her doctoral thesis exhibition as a result of five years of research at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb, mentored by full professor Igor Rončević and Jana Žiljak Vujić, PhD.
Dijana is exhibiting her paintings which are abstract in the visible spectrum, while in the infrared spectrum, viewed with an IR camera, different motifs come to life: angels, portraits, self-portraits and textual messages. As a matter of fact, these are two different motifs in the same painting, two integrated mages, one of which is visible with a naked eye, while the other is visible with an IR camcorder or camera. This opens up the possibility of presenting two states of a work of art in the same painting – chromatic and achromatic.

The second part of the exhibition is concerned with studying the application of deliberately invisible and deliberately visible retouching in the near-infrared spectrum in the conservation and restoration practice. To corroborate this premise, two late 19^th century paintings were conserved and restored with a deliberately visible and deliberately invisible retouching on the spots where the painted layer was damaged using the NIR preparation and the knowledge on the parameters determining the properties of pigments. The retouching of the first painting, the Portrait of Ilija Guteša by Anastas Bocarić from the Zagreb City Museum, is deliberately invisible, while in the second painting Znaim by Dragutin (Karl, Carl) von Weingärtner from the Croatian History Museum, the retouching in the NIR spectrum is deliberately visible.

Throughout history, numerous artists in different eras painted over their works of art for economic reasons, because of developments in their artistic expression, for the purposes of experimenting, because they were dissatisfied with the painting, at someone’s suggestion… These types of pentimento, depending on the thickness of paint and type of pigment, are visible or discernible in the IR spectrum. Although their creation was unintentional, the information about the underlying painting remains in the genesis of the painting. With her exhibition, Dijana is demonstrating the results of analyses based on the idea of deliberate painting of dual images offering the new possibilities of expression owing to the intrinsic properties of pigments.

Dijana Nazor, born in 1971, is a painter, teacher of art and conservationist-restorer. She graduated in 1995 from the then Faculty of Science and Pedagogy in Split (today the Academy of Art). Since 1995 she has held more than 30 solo exhibitions in Croatia, Belgium and Austria. She participated in more than 100 juried group exhibitions in the country and abroad. In 2006, she completed a 2-month resident training course in Paris, in the Cité Internationale des Arts atelier. As of 2007, she has been heading the art programme of the International Street Festival Cest is d’ Best. She is a PhD student of the postgraduate PhD programme of Graphic Art at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Zagreb. She was presented with numerous awards for her art and pedagogical work, some of which are: the Dean’s Award of the Faculty, the prize for the coat of arms and flag of Municipality Dugi Rat, the Grigor Vitez Award Commendation for the illustrations in the children’s book Tales from the Shallows (Bajke iz plićaka), the State Award Ivan Filipović and the medal of the Order of Croatian Danica with the image of Antun Radic. In 2013 she was awarded the title of Celebrity AFIAP by the International Federation of Photographic Art.

She is a member of HDLU Zagreb, InSEA, HDVLK i IIC-Croatian Group.

OPEN

Wednesday – Friday: 11 – 19

Saturday and Sunday 10 – 18 h
Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and holidays