Common Outlands by SofiaSilvia

The Gallery of the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia
17th Oct – 23 Nov 2008

Private view 16th October 6-8pm

by appointment: fturner@mvpei.hr, sofijasilvia@yahoo.com,
or 0207 387 3276

Sensing the World

When we drive along the road connecting the hinterland and the sea, we usually look in the direction of movement. These are usual scenes, determined by nothing special: a heavier or less heavy traffic, careful or aggressive drivers in front of, alongside or behind us. With our gaze we scrub asphalt in front of us, unable to do anything else. Silvia Potočki has passed this stretch looking sideways. Her gaze is free, focused on conifers, their branches heavy with snow. Silence seems to be one of the prevailing characteristics of her photographs; it is steadfast, nothing disturbs it. Her gaze searches the far-off something, which is already at her reach – a moment at the same time secretive and frightening, like when she once saw and photographed swollen veins on a girl’s hand, or a fly that brought the beauty of a flower down to earth.
During the last two years I have been carefully observing Silvia’s works, increasingly convinced that they do not document particular moments, but that they are questions she asks herself and the viewers. Her personality is strongly assimilated into the photographs; at the same time she manages to keep distance; she lets things follow their own logic and does not try to influence the course of events. Her explorations are soft-toned and her experiences unique.
In a recently shot series of photographs, the centre of the frame is overshadowed by the room in the background, delineated by perspectives of coarse greyish walls on which shadows linger only unwillingly, as if they hesitate to ennoble the dryness of their appearance. In the centre, with its head bowed and a sad look not reaching us, stands a brown bear, holding onto the threshold of its dwelling with his mighty claws. In the next scene the movement of its head and the turn of the body indicate a premonition of an action we at first do not see, focused on the harshness of the ambience the animal lives in. In the third photograph we become aware of the object of his interest when in the photographer’s focus we spot a swallow that has probably made a nest in this inhospitable environment.
Without grand gestures, “doomed” to the beauty of everyday things, we face the author’s experience, trying to infer something from it. Before us we have photographs whose aesthetic effect is based upon almost invisible experiences; these are works in which the author retains the feeling of the unspoken by shooting empty urban spaces, city- and landscapes observed at some unusual time of the day, while shadows do not describe too much, being transformed into commonplaces and specific places. Silvia Potočki’s works function on the principle of recording experiences and memories; they have a specific property of drawing the viewer into “a world of which one doesn’t exactly know how it is constituted but of which one senses that it is there” (W.G. Sebald). (Sandra Križić Roban)

Born in Croatia, SofijaSilvia (Silvia Potočki) has lived and worked in London since 2006. She has graduated from the MA Fine Art course at the Central Saint Martins College of Art an Design in 2007. She has shown her work Internationally in Graz, Austria, at the Camera Austria Gallery at the Kunsthaus, in Slovenia at the Slovenian House of Photography APT Gallery and most recently took part in the international group show Seeking for a Place of Oblivion at the Art Pavilion in Zagreb Croatia.
Her work has been published internationally in the camera Austria International magazine and Slovenian Fotografija magazine, as well as in Croatian Contura, Čovjek I prostor and Oris art magazines.
She received her BA honours in 2002, from FAMU -The Film and TV School of The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic, Department of Art Photography.
This is her first solo show in London.