Works
VISUAL SENSATION >> 2026
From 2002 to 2026
In 2002, I became intrigued by optical sensations and the vibrations that arise through the act of looking. I began to reflect on what makes a work special, what gives it the power to become a work of art. During an optical sensation, the space that appears to be “empty” between the artwork and the viewer becomes active, vibrant, alive. This was enough for me to embrace the sensation—to accept that, on a physical level, a work of art possesses its own aura, sending impulses toward us. This marked the beginning of Visual Stimulations.
The contrast between white and black—between the text of a book, the countless signs following one another, forming images and emotions—and contrasting colours captured against a black ground, displayed on a white wall. The creation of new worlds, stars and planets. The work and ideas of Viktor Vasarely, Kazimir Malevich and Steven Weinberg, particularly his The First Three Minutes, helped me bring the Visual Stimulations cycle to completion and realization.
TOTALLY UNIMPORTANT >> 2025
Totally unimportant >> 2025
There are eternal questions surrounding extraterrestrial life and extinct civilizations from other planets. We seek to discover what came before us and what may await us. We want to move forward, yet at the same time we forget what our reality is now. It may sound like a familiar cliché, but it seems we are not fully aware of what we risk. We are alone in the universe, for now. There is nothing quite like the human species, and we are as small as dust in the vastness. And yet, we are filled with hatred, greed, and narcissism. We are nothing more than, for the time being, hopelessly alone in the universe.
BENEATH THE ILLUSION, A SEA OF LOVE AWAITS US >> 2025
Beneath the illusion, a sea of love awaits us >> 2025
Today’s vast artistic production can, broadly speaking, be divided into two major groups – works and artists that invite us to think, and works and artists that awaken emotions within us. Only rarely do we encounter works that engage both the intellect and the emotions at the same time.
Beneath the Surface, a Sea of Love Awaits Us by Olivera Cavrić is precisely such a work. Conceived as a kind of journey, it takes the audience through three distinct artistic works that are, in fact, parts of a single whole. Together, they create a meditative audiovisual experience that invites reflection, feeling, and thought.
The first work is a polyptych consisting of 33 canvases (print, acrylic, and acrylic varnish with gold leaf), arranged in three rows. It features an ostensibly abstract treatment of the color blue, reminiscent of Klein, which Cavrić combines with gold.
There are few artists today who can give gold – so often synonymous with luxury and kitsch – a truly sacred meaning. In Cavrić’s work, the combination of blue and gold opens up two dimensions. The first, more obvious one, relates directly to the title of the work. Blue and gold are the colors of the sea and the sun. Her abstract composition of blue and gold can be interpreted as a depiction of the visual interplay between sunlight and its reflection on the surface of the sea.
The second dimension is the sense of the sacred evoked by the composition, following the traces of the familiar lapis lazuli blue found in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Christian Byzantine frescoes. This polyptych of abstract paintings in blue and gold evokes the feeling of entering a sacred place. This interpretation is further reinforced by the symbolism of the number 33. Thirty-three paintings are displayed on the wall, yet they are best perceived as a single, unified whole. The second work is a frieze composed of 33 paintings in mixed media (print, colored pencils, and pastel) – impressions of the surface of the sea, capturing, in an impressionistic manner, fleeting moments of the same interplay between the sea and the rays of the sun. Once again, the symbolism of the sacred number 33 is present. But here the direction is reversed. If the first work is expressionistically abstract, this frieze is impressionistically concrete. Here, Cavrić attempts to capture that moment of infinite reflection of sunlight upon the water. Each work bears its own title and carries its own ideological background. Here, Cavrić introduces a new dimension to the metaphor of reflection. These images are not merely visual reflections, but moments of human (self-)reflection. She depicts that primordial, pre-discursive moment in which an ideological thought is born – precisely that moment when we are alone with ourselves, thinking about ourselves, about love, and about the world in general. This brings us to the final work, in which Cavrić invites the audience to reflect. Across the entire wall, a video of the same sea is projected, filmed from Mala Srebrna Beach on the island of Vis. It is the same impression encountered in the previous works, but here it is no longer fragmented; instead, it becomes immersive.
The entire gallery space creates an environment of lived experience – something that, in the previous two works, was presented through more traditional visual media and a static installation. Cavrić does not merely recreate the creative act in an autoreferential manner; she invites the audience to experience it themselves. The idea for this exhibition was born precisely in such a moment of reflection, one summer day on Mala Srebrna Beach on the island of Vis – the place where, beneath the surface, a sea of love awaits us.
Saša Stanišić, mr.sc.
Film Director, Writer and Professor
COUNTDOWN >> 2017
Countdown >> 2017
Sketch titled “Telephone”, created in 2000, was made in my studio in Skopje. I experimented with paper, shapes, and contrasts. The numbers appeared spontaneously. Then, as now, I am fascinated by them as a sequence, an order that we follow, creating a path for seeing and analyzing, or shaping the processes and patterns of our lives. Numbers as a motif would appear again later in the “Countdown” series.
DOBAR / WONDERFUL >> 2012
Dobar / Wonderful >> 2012
True art is being a good friend, being a good parent, cooking a good meal… These are all small, “insignificant” activities that we engage in every day and in which we strive to succeed. The affirmative messages aim to empower the individual and make it clear that even the small, “insignificant” things “count” – and that through them, we create the bigger picture of “goodness.” Every human being is born with an artistic talent and has a need to create, including the act of cooking a good meal. Simply put, everything counts and contributes to creating the bigger picture of “goodness.”
_______________
Six digital prints, each measuring 25 × 25 cm, were exhibited in the gallery space alongside 150 T-shirts, which were distributed free of charge to visitors so that the messages about art could continue to LIVE on even after the exhibition had ended.
I’m Olivera, a painter and graphic designer – (mag. art) with a degree from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje, graduated painting in a class. of prof. Dušan Perčinkov in 2003. I was born in Skopje in 1978. and today I live and work in Zagreb. Member of HDLU – Croatian Association of Visual Artists.
