NIVES KAVURIĆ KURTOVIĆ, A BOSOM FULL OF WIND, 1999, OIL ON CANVAS, PRIVATE COLLECTION

NIVES KAVURIĆ KURTOVIĆ (1938) N.K. Kurtović is a painter of a unique expressiveness, favouring surrealist phantasmagorical features. She is foremost recognised also as a graphic designer. Born in Zagreb, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 1962, under the tutorship of Prof. Frano Baće. She was an assistant of Professor Krsto Hegedušić in his Master’s workshop from 1962 until 1967. From 1983 she has been lecturing at the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1997 she became member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She held numerous one-man exhibitions, particularly significant was one held in the Cabinet of Graphic Art of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Sciences (presently called Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences) in 1963. Since then she held numerous one man exhibitions on the entire territory of Croatia (Zagreb, Osijek, Pula, Karlovac, Hvar, Varaždin, Split, Vinkovci), on the territory of the former Yugoslavia (Ljubljana, Beograd, Novi Sad), and also in Europe (Vienna, Luzern, Turin, Milan, Paris). She also held numerous group exhibitions on all the Continents with the exception of Australia. She won numerous NATIONAL and international prizes, particularly important is the Grand Prix at the 5th Youth Biannual in Paris (1967), First Prize at the 2nd Internationale Malerwochen in Graz (1968), the Annual Award “Josip Račić” (1973), Grand prix award at the 8th International Exhibition of Original Drawings in Rijeka (1982), 25th Zagreb Saloon Award in 1990 and in 2004 she received a Life’s Work Prize “Vladimir Nazor”. From her artistic beginnings up till her most recent works Nives Kavurić Kurtović has remained faithful to her particularly distinctive figurative expression. In focus of her artistic interest are human figures, particularly expressively designed- enhanced with naturalistic details – revealing them as isolated, alienated and full of anxiety individuals. Colours applied across canvas are always sophisticated and measured, lines are suggestive and executed with particular virtuosity. Individuals are mostly placed in not defined spaces appearing strongly exposed. Motives as motherhood and femininity are often present in the works of Nives Kavurić Kurtović, and her paintings often flirt with grotesque and erotic images. She also paints the word or sometimes the line on the canvas freehand as well as on drawings and graphics, a habit that has influenced quite a number of young artists, especially women. A Bosom Full of Wind from 1999 features a figure of a woman, cut slightly above knees, standing against some undefined background. Neutral colours black and white dominate as well as grey, with very discreet use of pink and yellow tones applied on woman’s lips and bosom. Face and head are at the same time displayed in half profile and profile, from two different angles. With her right hand a woman is removing a tear, visible also on her face in profile as running down her cheek. Her right arm is almost at the right angel in reference to her left arm, placed across her heart which is somehow misplaced and as a small black arrow hovers freely, levelled with the woman’s sad gaze. Two pairs of pink lips/ kisses also hover in the air, carried away by a mysterious wind. For whom are the kisses intended to and shall they ever find the object remains a mystery? The answer is somewhere far away, beyond the frame of a painting.