Ascending by night — Jovana Trifujesko

Fagradalsfjall, the Icelandic volcano that erupted in 2021, is the main motif in Marija Šević’s series of works. Absent and hidden from the eye of the observer, his presence is all-consuming in the colors and the orientation of the spectators toward the scene of the eruption.

The devastating beauty of nature and man’s powerlessness before it is a well-explored motif, especially if we look back at the aesthetics of the sublime, which permeated throughout the 19th century. Sublime in painting refers to scenes of nature, vast and devastating, while for the viewer it awakens the need to face personal limitations and to appreciate its unbridled strength. Representations of these extraordinary natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, reflect the intention of provoking emotional reactions that go beyond rational thought and words. Experientially, when we encounter such scenes, we are completely moved and humbled. In cases where the sublime landscape was explored, the people shown in the painting would often be placed in the corner of the image, to emphasize how small they are in relation to the horror unfolding before them. In this series of paintings by Marija Šević that are shown as part of the exhibition Ascending by Night, there is a subversion, where the person observing a natural disaster is placed in the foreground. Equally without influence, as an agent of his powerlessness, he is not in pursuit of the picturesque but is united with the natural process. Through this perspective, Marija Šević plays with the anthropocentric view. Although the carriers of the work are actually people observing the landscape of unrest, they do not rule over the work or nature but rather represent a reflection of the process that is happening beyond them as individuals, beyond their control. These works, with their dimensions and composition, at first glance present a clear picture of the enjoyers of the landscape but hide more than they reveal. Everything essential to the feeling that dominates the painting is unknown to the viewer. The colors that rule the piece contribute to the recognition of the scene’s power and hint at the monumentality of the event that we can only speculate on. Man is not separated from the volcano, he is completely engulfed in it, and the effect of immersion in the scene is achieved in terms of color and through the attention he pays to it. At this moment, he is standing in front of one of the most powerful raging energies of destruction. This powerful sight does not allow man to monopolize it. Circumstances like these, involving the encounter of the inner emotional state and the swelling explosions of the natural world, allow the individual to be integrated into something greater than himself. There is no room for rationality as we observe the miracle of creation and destruction. Through this series of works, Marija Šević, guided by her personal experience of participating in the scene of the eruption, evokes memories and feelings of inexplicable peace and engrossment that appear and intertwine at the same time. Avoiding the depiction of the landscape, the artist looks back at the companions who are next to her at this given moment. There is no formal drama here, no emphatic expressions of delight and horror. The persons depicted are almost depersonalized. This is precisely the key to the game that Marija Šević skillfully sets up for us, like a theater piece in which we are only allowed to observe the audience. Such circumstances leave the observer of the painting with the possibility to only assume the inner happenings of the actor and imagine the landscape hinted at by the color. The only thing left for him to do is to yearn for a sight he does not know, for a feeling that is foreign to him.

In a series of smaller-format paintings, also exhibited as part of Ascending By Night, people cease to be the main motif of the composition, but the scene of the eruption is still inaccessible to us in its entirety. The canvases are filled with smoke and shadows of a monumental event, they drive the viewer to seek out and desire the scene. From the dynamism reflected in different formats and the varying subjects to which our attention is directed, the feeling emerges that we are close to grasping something at any moment. In search of what is not clearly given to us, we are forced to feel and seek guidance through the sublime. Similar to the very process of ascending by night, in which a permanent infinity separates us from the realization of the scene.