Ivana Štulić

An absence of movement and sound is indicative of stillness; a quality permeating the surfaces of Ivana Štulić’s paintings. Simplistic, minimal compositions depict figures in stripped-back settings leaving space for silence to breathe. Contained by the constraints of the canvas, Štulić’s scenes preserve the subtleties of her subjects, in turn converting minute physical gestures into magnified movements—a tilt of the head or a lingering hand. Building the body's vocabulary, these gestures communicate corporeal codes of physical ease: contentment, discomfort, longing and yearning. All of which are silently exaggerated by the eye in search of narrative.

The depths of her paintings start with a laborious process of physical staging. Preplanned, and meticulously designed, all of Štulić’s compositions play out within an assortment of controlled variables, reminiscent of a film set. Lighting is created and enhanced where needed, props, laid out specifically to suggest hints of a narrative; models are often hired for their specific aesthetic and the settings, hand-chosen and relative to the artist's current location. By converting the digital image to the canvas’ porous surface, attention shifts, the palette becomes more muted and a hum of stillness radiates – allowing more focused observations to arise. The setting in which Štulić’s figures exist is liminal, nondescript and transitory; a space that remains familiar but never fully graspable.

In her latest series at Nightworks Residency, Štulić continues to expand on the impermanence of quotidian life. In ‘Descendants’ (all works 2024) an elderly couple sit in plush, curvaceous armchairs, facing a wall with a small picture frame depicting a youthful couple. Whilst ‘Coat Rack’ a girl runs her hands through a collection of coats, in search of something she is not meant to find. Whilst these works place focus on the characters, Štulić’s oeuvre also includes spaces where figures are absent. Much like a mise-en-scene from a film set, these interior landscapes enhance the visual narrative, creating believable environments for the viewer's mind to linger. In ‘Box of Memories’ a storage box rests atop a stack of books on the floor in a supposedly vacant room, open, and spilling out with various miscellaneous items. Tacked to the wall, a child's drawing hangs freely, whilst a polaroid of a couple is pinned below. In these varying scenes, the mind wonders, daydreaming within the parameters of the canvas, connecting the dots and forming associations between the visual references Štulić leaves behind. Here, personal experiences and collective memory join hands in formulating an isolated narrative for the viewer, one that no two people will share. Much like the staging she provides for her models, Štulić dresses her compositions for the viewer's imagination; leaving props to suggest a trace of narratives that may or may not exist, posing questions rather than providing answers.

In ‘Seeing Further’ (2024) Esther Kinsky calls ‘Every window a cinema’. This is as true in real life as it is for the illusionary spaces expressed through paint: the onus of exploring lies within the gaze of the spectator. Nuanced observations are formed from recognisable motifs, weaving pictorial threads into narratives that overlap memories with lived experience. In the studio, Štulić’s works remain still, patiently silent, and ready for the viewer to shout: action!

Artist CV

Text by Brooke Wilson Portrait by Billie Clarken