What’s on by Anna Hassapi
My Animal and Other Families, an exhibition about relationships and honesty
My Animal and Other Families, the latest exhibition by talented young artist Nina Sumarac offers a combination of visual stimulation with an honest exploration of self-image and human intercourse and relationships.
The exhibition comprises mostly portraits and figurative paintings. The artist used oil paints for half of the paintings, while the rest were developed using mixed media, creating work that combines drawings, pastels, collage and scattered words.
As Sumarac explains, the idea for the exhibition’s theme came almost by chance. The artist works in an animation studio, which she says attributes for the characteristic cartoon style of her work. Every day she would collect the notes from the animation work and hold on to them. She then realised that her collection of daily notes, formed a diary of sorts, a record of observations and feelings, noted freely and honestly. These notes were incorporated into the mixed media work presented in the upcoming exhibition.
“I would note things down with honesty, without thinking. Connected random notes from everyday life, automatic writing of anything that comes to the brain. I then found some old photos at my family house, which I’ve also incorporated in the collection,” Sumarac explains.
In this exhibition Sumarac continues to explore the channels of communication with family, friends and within ourselves. “We should learn to accept things. In order to accept, we need to be honest with ourselves, the good and the bad within us. We should become aware of who we really are and accept it. Once we have accepted ourselves, we can accept other people and love them for who they truly are,” Sumarac explains.
Viewing others as they really are requires honesty, but also the ability to ignore established images or ‘tags’ assigned to people. “We all create our own reality. In this reality, we create images of how we view people. We then brand people with different tags. But do we really know them? We should give everyone a chance, without passing judgment,” Sumarac says.
Nina Sumarac was born in Belgrade in 1972. She has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from New Belgrade Polytechnic Academy. She also took art classes with artist Natasa Anicic-Brkic for five years.
Today Sumarac lives in Limassol, where she has a studio. She is presently a student in her third year at Stass Paraskos College of Art. Sumarac has exhibited her work in numerous group exhibitions since 1989, as well as solo exhibitions since 1994.
She also works as a production assistant for an animation studio in Cyprus and has produced five short animated films and numerous commercials for local and international audiences.
My Animal and Other Families will be opened on March 18 by Mirco V. Jelic, Ambassador of Serbia and Dr Nadia Anaxagorou , Director of Cultural Services, Limassol Municipality at Rouan Gallery,28 Dodekanisou St, Limassol.
The exhibition will stay open until March 30.
