PHOTOGRAPHY: An exhibition at the CroArtPhoto Club

You could say that the “real” authors of the photographs captured by the camera of Višnja and Marijan Anić are the seabed, the sea and the light. The recorded material “Painting with the Sea” is now being exhibited at the Badrov CroArtPhoto Club at 25 Gajeva. The Anićes have already published their infatuation with the Brijuni islands in the form of a photo monograph and their already merged photographic authorship seems again inclined to be renounced here. Although the Brijuni sea and its seabed define the material part of the story, it is the Anićes who define the content of the abstract compositions “painted by the sea” by choosing the frame and the moment for each shot. The photographs can be viewed until 15 December.

Salty exhibitions: painting with the sea, Veli Brijun Gallery

“Painting with the Sea” by Višnja and Marijan Anić is the unpretentious process of giving shape to a fascination, linking two otherwise opposing realities: elemental nature and sophisticated technology.

Large and wide, deep and open, the sea is far removed from any aesthetic judgement: any possible measure and criteria are lost in the expanse of the ocean and the stretches of the high seas, while in the coastal area, in the bays and coves, in the shoals and shallows, one can establish relationships which might be qualified as harmonious and charming, or dynamic and dramatic.

A painter or a poet, a musician or a photographer, in other words a sensitive soul, will find motifs in the surrounding nature which will encourage him to make choices by affinity, inspire him to some more or less creative response.

If nothing else, the very look itself will frame a characteristic or significant situation, so to say “zoom in” on what, from a profusion of stimuli, most corresponds by affinity or by contrast. The outcome of each stimulating encounter between man and nature finds a correlation for the infinite and the unreachable (that is to say, for cosmic distances) within the limitations of our terrestrial destiny and short-term existence.

Tonko Maroević used these words in the introduction of the “Painting with the Sea” catalogue, trying to get to the bottom of the cycle of the amateur photographers Visnja and Marijan Anić who defined their future through the frame and the camera lens, finding always new sophisticated and amazing structures of the sea surface. The photographs exhibited in the exhibition space of Veli Brijun are the result of tireless pilgrimages along the rocks and cliffs of the archipelago.

The authors Višnja and Marijan Anić have discovered a specific way of capturing the coastal seabed. In their photographs, the details of the sea look like works of art. We have the impression of looking at graphics, watercolours or oils, etc. There were no subsequent interventions in the process, except the usual ones (correcting the consequences of flawed exposure and the like).

The end effect of the photographs primarily depends on the light conditions, such as the position and strength of the sun, on the direction and height of the waves, on the configuration and picturesqueness of the seabed and on the exposure of the camera. One of the characteristics of taking photos in this way is that when selecting motifs through the finder, one cannot see the final picture, and repeated photographing on the same spot frequently gives different results. The fact that the sea has been creating and projecting such pictures for millennia is fascinating.
Only state-of-the-art technology and the position of the photographer allow the freezing of the fraction of a moment and the discovery of the surprising beauty of the sea which has been hidden until now.

“Painting with the Sea” by Višnja and Marijan Anić is an unpretentious process of giving shape to a fascination, linking two otherwise opposing realities: elemental nature and sophisticated technology, all for the purpose of creating an emotional and aesthetic response.

The sea has served as a kind of perpetuum mobile of fascinating pictures, as a generous and gentle transmitter of “positive vibrations”, as an ethereal insight into an abyss and as a mirror of the sun’s beneficial rays. The camera of our authors does not merely capture the epidermis, the skin of the sea surface, but pierces through various layers of diaphanous and flexible matter, creating the suggestion of not only three-dimensionality but also of a widening, spreading and stretching in all directions.

The married couple Višnja and Marijan Anić have converted their passion for art into photographs of the most beautiful Croatian pearl, the Adriatic Sea. Having discovered the interplay between the sea and the refractions of light, their pictures resemble more abstract works of art than photography. They have opened their fifth independent exhibition in the Stančić Gallery. It is open until 25 September.

Painting with the sea. You have probably never heard of it. But here is an opportunity to introduce you to a retired pair who, back in 2001, discovered the sea as an endless source of motifs as they took photos of our attractive Brijuni islands. Walking by the rocky coast they searched for a place in the shallow waters which would promise a picture. What you need are moderate waves, the sun, a picturesque seabed – and there you have it – an artistic phenomenon without the need for colours, canvas or paintbrush.

In fact, the Anićes do not create art, they find it. We asked them whether their pictures are perfect art photographs. “No,” they said, “it is all about photographing works of art created by the sea in an endless richness of colours and structures, moment by moment – from time immemorial.”

These attractive pictures hang in many galleries and homes and have been exhibited five times at independent exhibitions.

No, we are not talking about the piano piece by Mussorgsky, we are referring to the recently (and eventually) organized exhibition of the spouses Visnja and Marijan Anic in the ‘Aqua’ gallery of the Croatian Waters on the occasion of the World Day of Water.

The motifs of the sea bottom filtered through the water itself, exposed to the interventions of the natural light and the streaming of the air, in their interpretation were a feast to the eye. Having an unquestionable artistic imagination, the authors combined the chance with a controlled photographic action, they reconciled two polarities – the nature and the technology (the sea and the camera) in order to capture and share with others their own fascination with this natural phenomenon.

The forms appearing before the viewers’ eyes were presentations of the phenomenon invisible to the naked eye. Only when approached with a certain exposition, the perceived segments of the sea beauty transform into a visual sensation which doesn’t resemble the classical photography at all. What we saw were fascinating ‘abstract paintings’ rich in colour and unusual morphology. In the interpretation of the Anices, the motif is replaced by an association or an evocation in a free perception formulated by a classical photographic procedure without subsequent intervention or revision.

The photographs we had the opportunity to see are the result of observation, study and recording, they are the reflection of an exploratory impulse and the life philosophy of gifted individuals who have recognised, selected and materialised the beauty and the potential of water to change and transform, recording it with a great number of clicks and with subsequent selections, intuitively reaching for the pieces which satisfy the criteria of the artistic artifact in terms of composition, morphology and colour…

When we first went through the photo gallery of the Anices on their Website, we were astonished with the beauty of the motifs, so much so, that we would come back to it again and again for days, always discovering something new, beautiful or interesting.

We thank them for that and wish them never to stop taking such photos and discovering to us the secret depths of the sea and the soul.

SANDA STANAĆEV BAJZEK, Graduate engineer in agronomy
MARIJA VIZNER, Art historian

Working on a photomonograph of an island, Visnja and Marijan Anic discovered a decorative sea phenomenon which is , due to its sluggishness, invisible to the naked eye. However it is visible in the sea photographs shot within a fraction of a second.

Namely, due to irregular refraction of light through the waves, you get a deformed picture of the sea bottom with specific coloristic and structural effects which resemble an abstract work of art.

The Anices have concluded that this is the phenomenon of freezing a situation which is invisible to the naked eye, whereby the fractions of the wave or sometimes even waterdrops appear lined with unexpected colours and often give an impression of an intended brushstroke or a stroke of a painter’s knife.

They called the shooting of the the seawaves with an intention of getting the effect of an abstract painting or a work of art: PAINTING WITH THE SEA. They have had six independent exhibitions and several joint ones.
The sea has been offering such ‘paintings’ for millions of years, but since everything has its own due time, what was needed was the contemporary level of the photo equipment, the sensibility for abstract pictures and a great patience to capture this additional potential of the sea.

Taking all this into account, the phenomenon seems promising.

‘The Dance of the Nereids II’ is the title of the exhibition of photographs by Visnja and Marijan Anic opened in the gallery ‘Kupola’ of the City Library in Zagreb.
It is an exhibition from the cycle ‘Painting with the Sea’ which opens the exhibition season of the Gallery and will be open till 28th September.