Vladimir Tomić

Just a day before the first lockdown in Croatia, March 23, 2020, and the closure of long-distance communication, at the end of March, my girlfriend and I decided that a rented apartment in Šibenik, her hometown, would be a good refuge for us from a new and unknown threat. Given that our car was overloaded with things we deemed necessary in such a confusing situation, a block of quality drawing paper and a stack of black ballpoint pens was the best option, and the only thing I managed to squeeze in.

And that soon proved to be a good choice. In the next few days, without thinking about a motive or an idea, and without any goal in mind, drawing became a meditation that I gladly indulged in. Perhaps such atmosphere created for me a privileged position of unburdened ambition to turn them into a series, let alone to plan an exhibition.

After a month, the lockdown ended and we had to return in Rijeka, change couple of apartments until we settled. Being drawn on smaller formats (30×40 cm) it was easy for me to transport them while moving around from Šibenik, Rijeka and Split, so my studio was always hanging from my shoulder in a map in a tote bag.

Couple of months later, drawings started to organically grow into a small series, which I exhibited for the first time on 16th July in Art caffe ‘Dnevni boravak’ (the Living Room), titled “Dobar dan i snoviđenja’, English version of the title is “Good day and Daydream’. Feeling it as an external encouragement and undisrupted by intercity traveling, I continued with my meditative drawing practice. In April 7-21, 2021, a second exhibition was held in Galerija Matice hrvatske, in Zagreb.

“In a time of ‘the New Normal’, growing tensions, the obvious collapse of the world as we know it, Tomić finds peace in contemplative drawing, creating a surreal world through visual essays, skillfully concealing the barrier between utopia and dystopia, building protection from unbearable reality.” Excerpt from my exhibition intro text by Boris Burić.

“In a series of works, he dances on the border of reality and fiction, conscious and unconscious, and dream and reality. The mystical atmosphere, which evokes scenes from cult films and novels of the last century, is built with a ballpoint pen raster, a technique that enters the meditative state and thus reflects inner visions and thoughts, evoking a melancholy atmosphere of ubiquitous alienation from nature.” Excerpt from my exhibition intro text by Boris Burić.

” Vladimir’s drawings show the process and thinking, that is, the vision of a long-lived future.” Excerpt from my exhibition intro text by Boris Burić.