Eva Visnjic: Art comes from people trying to express things to people

Most artists hope their art will change the world, but only a few of them have such clearly defined social ambitions as Eva Visnjic. This established artist is open to experimenting with different modernist styles, and is best known for figurative oil paintings that depict the world the way she wants to be, rather than as she found it. Drawing on new modernist ideas, Eva presented at her RISD portfolio a series of vivid paintings. Here the color is attractive and slightly more vibrant than her previous works, decorated with warmth and harmonic unity. These paintings offer quiet enjoyment and pleasurable reflections. With these paintings, Visnjic invites us to witness the passing pleasures of life.

Whether she’s painting a landscape, still life, or figure, Visnjic always draws inspiration from life. Usually she paints directly from her subject, so each day she approaches the painting she’s working on as if it was a new piece. For her, the richness of information offered by nature, as well as her response to this information, is crucial for the success of her paintings.

Art, in her view, comes from people trying to express things to people. According to the modern artist, it is possible to change the world by simply creating an emotion. However, in an age when communication technology is cutting down the amount of time we are spending together, such minor, personal links between human beings count for an awful lot.

Maintaining these human contacts is important in a world where we’re losing them. After all humans are made to live as groups, as communities, and Visnjic believes art can be a really strong link for that. Artworks are one of the few things that remain, once we have all left this world. Even now, the only thing that we as humanity keep and protect, is what the artists have left behind,

Eva Visnjic works in both watercolor and oil, and she is pleased by the strengths of both. She likes the stickiness of oil and the color action you get from color bumping against color. With oil painting she also likes how she can work over an earlier version of something.

When working on a painting in oil, Eva likes strong color, and as she continues to paint, she responds to the way the color of light might influence her subject, but doesn’t go so far as to exaggerate color. When she works wet into wet, normally she doesn’t use mediums that accelerate drying.

Eva Visnjic aims to take a similar approach with watercolor, but stresses that with this medium you need to create a more fixed drawing to paint on top of. What appeals her most in watercolor, are the transparency and liquid quality of the marks. she likes it when two transparent colors that are far apart on the color spectrum, can mix with each other and create a new, third color.