EXHIBITION / ALBA MIOČEV
EVERYTHING IS A TRACE (JACQUES DERRIDA)
Vibrating, repeated gestures, vivid like an engraving, pulse across the surface of fabric and canvas. The floating, almost sketch-like lines seem to resist becoming definitive within this monumental record of moving through the unknown. Creation based on a predetermined visual plan is undone by a slow, spontaneous process of reflection, so that each mark, through its vibration, but without unnecessary dramatization, captures the impression of a moment, like the barely audible current of a space gradually gathering into form.
Miočev constructs a mental landscape through line, expressing the density of lived experience, relationships, and a stream of thought. She does not depict what she sees, but rather what passes through her as she processes and creates. This is why her work moves away from illustration and remains performative. The painting becomes a record of time spent in space. Mistakes are not deviations to be concealed. They are an integral part of the visual fabric, capable of changing direction, opening new pathways, and expanding the rhythm of the image. The six-meter-long textile therefore does not depict a forest but the feeling of a forest. It does not depict a path but the movement of thought. It does not depict a relationship but its vibration. The paintings, meanwhile, are not merely complements to the large-scale work but its satellites, small worlds in which the same ideas are refracted through different densities, rhythms, and colors. They form parallel trajectories, distinct fragments of the same process. Through her work, Miočev opens up a space in which uncertainty is recognized as a legitimate mode of existence. Openness to process, to not knowing, and to the possibility that thought may transform into line, and line once again into feeling, becomes the foundation of her artistic language. Everything is a trace, yet a trace that never closes upon itself. It continually begins again, like a walk that seeks no destination but allows direction to emerge from movement itself.
Alba Miočev (Zadar, 1994) graduated from the School of Applied Arts and Design in Zadar before enrolling in the Painting department at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. As part of the Erasmus+ program in 2016/17, she studied at Ulster University in Belfast, and during an Erasmus+ traineeship in 2018/19, she worked as an intern at the GlogauAIR artist residency in Berlin. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions and is the author of eight solo exhibitions. In addition to traditional painting, she also creates murals. She received the Audience Award at Erste Fragmenti 18 in 2022 and the Grand Prix at Erste Fragmenti 20 in 2024. She is a member of the Croatian Association of Fine Artists (HDLU).
