Photo: Julija Dodič
16 January – 20 February 2024
P74 Gallery
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In her first solo exhibition, Julia Dodič presents a spatial installation consisting of three individual pieces that explore human relationships. These relationships are made visible through limited but varied use of materials, shapes, and colours that, as elements, replace the presence of a human figure in her work. Dodič studies photography and (currently) also painting, through which she explores the boundaries between different media. That is precisely what has led her to the autonomous objects that are now on display. She is driven by her reflection on framing as a traditional method of representing and exhibiting visual imagery as well as an element that rarely receives as much attention as the content it encaptures.
There are two assumptions that form the basis of Julija Dodič’s artistic practice: one is a human understanding of space within her characteristic minimalist aesthetic, and the other is a more general questioning of the human being, be it through seeking answers in mutual relationships or studying the manifestations of the conscious and the subconscious, the visible and the invisible, the accentuated and the overlooked. The three pieces featured in the exhibition are Dodič’s attempt to both raise and answer existentialist questions through the medium of proto-installation.
As mentioned, the exhibition showcases three objects: One and Two Creatures (2024), consisting of two drawers connected by a red rope; Try to Go Through (2024), a piece featuring a series of three frames, one of which is glazed; and Intermezzo (2024), essentially a box containing a photo book. We can notice that Dodič limits her use of colour to black, white, and red, the latter being one that she is most fond of and that in her work usually symbolises a sort of circulatory system of the installation. There is also a limit imposed in terms of the form; these pieces consist of rectangular solids, cubes, edges, angles, and plates. Finally, Dodič limits the variety of materials used: glass, mirror, wood, and thread. It is materiality that most strongly defines these artworks. They are placed close to the floor of the gallery spaces. Such a presence has the opposite effect of classical sculptural works that are usually placed high on pedestals in that her works are transformed from sculptural installations into objects that, just like people, coexist in our world. The artist understands her geometric installations not as figures but rather as substitutes for humans whose closedness allows them to preserve a part of themselves for themselves.
The three deconstructed cubes represent spaces of passage or lack thereof. Drawers and their red threads – a space of movement of human emotions and feelings between two individuals. Frames, glazed or unglazed – a corridor in which the visitor is lost in an optical illusion of the possibility of passage. Glazed book of photograms – the most liberal artistic medium, hidden behind the glass display case, so close, yet safe from the visitor’s intrusive touch and gaze. Dodić considers that work to be an analogy of herself: the photogram book is her symbolic self-portrait; the covers are her consciousness, that which she shares with others, her face, her interior, her subconsciousness, her intimacy, that which she prefers to keep for herself and hide from the prying eyes of acquaintances and, even more so, strangers. The object thus embodies the artist’s practice – a space of exceptional intimacy that, at first glance, may raise some questions but is nevertheless filled with subjective interpretations.
Neža Vengust, Nika Vorih
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Julija Dodič (2003) is an undergraduate student at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, majoring in Visual Communications Design with a specific focus on photography. Currently, she is part of the student exchange program at the Florence Academy (Accademia di Belle Arti), where she is studying painting. In her more recent work, Dodič has been focusing on exploring the medium of spatial arrangements – installation. She first delved into this medium in 2023, when she participated in a Light Guerrilla 23: Space group project in Ljubljana.
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Interview with Julija Dodič (pdf)
The interview was conducted by Svit Skobir Lampič.
