ADELISA SELIMBAŠIC'

As always in the paintings of Adelisa Selimbašic´ (Malsch, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1996), the subject is the body, proposed in the work in competition, The Absent Ones, in a choral composition: multiplied in a theory of embracing figures, on the one hand it creates an impenetrable screen, beyond which the gaze of the observer (us) does not reach, and on the other it reveals details and prompts questions that invite close observation, and ultimately participation. “I always find it fascinating,” the artist explains, ”how the body of an individual, put in relation with that of others through touch, embrace, concatenation, becomes a single whole: like a puzzle. This is my, if you will, very romantic idea of collectivity.” As a result, the barrier between our “here and now,” the elsewhere of the painting and their respective horizons is apparent: the very notion of absence, substantiated by the title, becomes a pretext to stimulate curiosity and attraction, a kind of contrivance to bridge distances, according to what Selimbašic´ defines as “empathic reading of the image.”  Technique, palette and cut of the composition faithfully trace the iconographic and stylistic language that distinguishes his style, as do the themes, which take up and amplify the inseparability between the bodily and inner dimensions, between intimate and shared space, in an interweaving, physical and emotional, that is not afraid of the banality of the simplest (and most authentic) gestures and feelings.