Maja Ruznic
Mother and Child (Yellow), 2021
Oil on linen
238.8 x 177.8 cm
94 x 70 in
94 x 70 in
Maja Ruznic (b. 1983 Bosnia & Hercegovina) received a BFA from University of California, Berkeley, CA (2005) and an MFA from California College of Arts, San Francisco, CA (2009). She...
Maja Ruznic (b. 1983 Bosnia & Hercegovina) received a BFA from University of California, Berkeley, CA (2005) and an MFA from California College of Arts, San Francisco, CA (2009). She currently lives and works in Roswell, New Mexico, USA.
Ruznic is primarily a painter, drawing on personal and collective memories to create works that deeply connect with human psyche. Allowing for figures to emerge from the thin layers of oil paint she applies to the canvas, the characters seemingly coalesce with their environments. She describes the process of painting as trying to remember a dream, touching on Bracha L. Ettinger’s theories of ‘matrixial borderspace’: the space of shared effect and emergent expression, across the thresholds of identity and memory.
Ruznic deftly weaves themes of trauma and suffering with mythology and healing, softening the darker subject matter in her work. This softening is then applied to the process of painting – scumbling, blurring and allowing shapes to bleed into one another – symbolically destabilizing borders. Playing with ambiguity, the paintings lie on the threshold of form, which Ruznic compares to a thought or a feeling that precedes language. She looks to evoke transitional moments, like dawn and dusk, containing illuminating and eternal qualities. This timelessness permeates the paintings, tracing journeys and rituals, histories and secrets. Nostalgic and empathetic, the works ultimately speak of human experience.
Mother and Child (Yellow) (2021) is a tender depiction of a familial relationship. Mother and child in close embrace is a motif Ruznic returns to throughout her practice. In the studio, when Ruznic gets close to the emotional feeling she is after, the paintings seem to melt away before her and she feels as though she has stepped into her memories. Much like the act of remembering, outlines of the paintings diffuse and the closer one gets to the surface, the more the picture falls away.
‘The image that falls apart is significant to me because it feels like my diasporic experience – certain bits of memory are etched forever while other information is forever lost – retrievable only through photographs or stories told by others who were there. Like a bright moment of cadmium red floating on top of a diffused field of quivery blue hues, a memory fragment can have great potency – even if it isn’t there as a whole.’ (Ruznic, 2020)
About the artist
Born in Bosnia & Hercegovina in 1983, Ruznic immigrated to the United States in 1995, settling in California. When the war in Bosnia started in 1992, Ruznic and her mother fled immediately, living in refugee camps in Austria until they eventually arrived in San Francisco in 1995. She went on to study at the University of California, Berkley (2005), later receiving an MFA from the California College of Arts (2009). Ruznic currently lives and works in New Mexico, USA.
Ruznic has exhibited internationally and her work has been written about extensively, most notably in Artforum, ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings. In 2018, Ruznic was a recipient of the Hopper Prize. In 2019, Dallas Museum of Art, TX, USA and The US Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina acquired her work for their collections. In 2021, Ruznic had her debut institutional show In the Silver of the Sun at The Harwood Museum of Art, Rosewell, NM, USA. Later this year her work is included in the group exhibition, Hi Woman! at the Museo di Palazzo Prato, Italy.
Ruznic is primarily a painter, drawing on personal and collective memories to create works that deeply connect with human psyche. Allowing for figures to emerge from the thin layers of oil paint she applies to the canvas, the characters seemingly coalesce with their environments. She describes the process of painting as trying to remember a dream, touching on Bracha L. Ettinger’s theories of ‘matrixial borderspace’: the space of shared effect and emergent expression, across the thresholds of identity and memory.
Ruznic deftly weaves themes of trauma and suffering with mythology and healing, softening the darker subject matter in her work. This softening is then applied to the process of painting – scumbling, blurring and allowing shapes to bleed into one another – symbolically destabilizing borders. Playing with ambiguity, the paintings lie on the threshold of form, which Ruznic compares to a thought or a feeling that precedes language. She looks to evoke transitional moments, like dawn and dusk, containing illuminating and eternal qualities. This timelessness permeates the paintings, tracing journeys and rituals, histories and secrets. Nostalgic and empathetic, the works ultimately speak of human experience.
Mother and Child (Yellow) (2021) is a tender depiction of a familial relationship. Mother and child in close embrace is a motif Ruznic returns to throughout her practice. In the studio, when Ruznic gets close to the emotional feeling she is after, the paintings seem to melt away before her and she feels as though she has stepped into her memories. Much like the act of remembering, outlines of the paintings diffuse and the closer one gets to the surface, the more the picture falls away.
‘The image that falls apart is significant to me because it feels like my diasporic experience – certain bits of memory are etched forever while other information is forever lost – retrievable only through photographs or stories told by others who were there. Like a bright moment of cadmium red floating on top of a diffused field of quivery blue hues, a memory fragment can have great potency – even if it isn’t there as a whole.’ (Ruznic, 2020)
About the artist
Born in Bosnia & Hercegovina in 1983, Ruznic immigrated to the United States in 1995, settling in California. When the war in Bosnia started in 1992, Ruznic and her mother fled immediately, living in refugee camps in Austria until they eventually arrived in San Francisco in 1995. She went on to study at the University of California, Berkley (2005), later receiving an MFA from the California College of Arts (2009). Ruznic currently lives and works in New Mexico, USA.
Ruznic has exhibited internationally and her work has been written about extensively, most notably in Artforum, ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings. In 2018, Ruznic was a recipient of the Hopper Prize. In 2019, Dallas Museum of Art, TX, USA and The US Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina acquired her work for their collections. In 2021, Ruznic had her debut institutional show In the Silver of the Sun at The Harwood Museum of Art, Rosewell, NM, USA. Later this year her work is included in the group exhibition, Hi Woman! at the Museo di Palazzo Prato, Italy.