Visible – Invisible

Exhibition set up assistent: Arpad Pulai
Organizer: Museum of Applied Art, Belgrade

This year the first Salon of the Museum of Applied Art is dedicated to the works of Leonora Vekić, visual artist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade. From the very beginning of her artistic life Leonora focused on new trends in tapestry oriented to the “new key” and to the use of plastic matter which made the very notion of tapestry utterly fluid. The author transforms threads and interweaving of nylon, plastics, wires or recycled stuff into rhythmically more complex forms and builds structures of abstract compositions.

Exploring the interrelation between the positive and negative space the artist exhibited four of her big installations and works of smaller format which transform the museum space into a visible-invisible maze. Transparency is achieved by lacy “intertwining” of natural and synthetic materials (paper, cotton, plasticization foils and synthetic textile) of pristine white hues. Resembling Ariadne’s thread here red “threads” lead the visitor starting with the On the other side…. It was most difficult to achieve easiness, Circles, If the heart had wings, subtle female images shaped by crocheted pieces… up to the dazzling “rain” of red “petals”, Allure.

Vesna Pavićević pointed out in the exhibition catalogue that “the works of Leonora Vekić represent the synthesis of her attitudes towards the life, memories, feminine identity and, as she herself said ’something we bear inside us and still keep searching for it’. Lace, in her opinion symbolizes sensuality, luxury, innocence, fragility, vulnerability, insecurity of identity. The artist uses lace pattern to speak about subjectivity, family, memories, status of women, about her world. “

Biographical Note

Leonora Vekić (1970) graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts, Department for Textile Design in 1995. She took her MA in tapestry in 2000 (mentor: Professor Jadranka Simonović). In 2005 she was appointed assistant lecturer for Tapestry and Old Textile Techniques; since 2012 she works as assistant professor. Leonora Vekić is active in the art of textile and fashion and in other visual arts. She is member of the Association of Fine Artists and Applied Artists of Serbia (ULUPUDS)