Ana Zanic, Moon Descending, acrylic/charcoal/graphite on canvas, 12″x16″
For me, making art has always been a search that allowed me to explore formal visual elements, as well as personal feelings, through an intuitive, spontaneous process.
My abstract paintings are executed in media of watercolor and acrylic. Watercolors are built with layers of washes, intermixed with dynamic lines, scribbles and marks of ink drawing. There is often a quiet tension between the watercolor’s fluidity, softness and calm, vs. the dynamic, rhythm and energy of drawing.
Ana Zanic, “Lightness,” acrylic on canvas, 20″x24″
With acrylics, the physicality of the process plays an important role – the paint is layered, sometimes removed or wiped, then covered up again, resulting in a rich texture.
Ana Zanic, “Into the Unknown/Within,” acrylic on canvas, 36″x48″
While painting with watercolor evokes in me a feeling of quiet contemplation and intimacy, working with acrylic paint, on the other hand, gives me a sense of vitality through building and changing the work over a longer course of time.
Ana Zanic, “Whisper,” acrylic on canvas, 30″x30″
Since earning her MFA at the University of Zagreb in 2002, Ana Zanic has had over a dozen solo shows and fifty-plus group shows, in just ten years, in Croatia and the United States. She has won several awards for her painting and was published four years in a row in American Art Collector (Alcove Books, Berkeley).
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