MATIJA – A PRESERVED SECRET

Living conditions made her lonely, mysterious and quite different. Early abandonment of her parents’ home under unknown circumstances and arrival in a less tame, urban and noisy environment must have influenced Matija, leaving visible traces in her soul. Faraway from her family, from the poetics of authentic speech and scents of the Mediterranean, Matija, mysterious, quiet, peculiar and chary of words, lived her new life in the world where the sound of cars and creaks of public transportation deafened the bird songs. At the same time, the interior of her soul was vivid and very breathtaking. That treasury of still unborn images of childhood, memorized, incised as if scars, subconsciously emerged out of her aspirations towards the recovery of proper order of virtues from the patriarchal world of her origins. Matija’s experiences in childhood would become her most inspiring motifs: pomegranates and tangerines in blossom, a picturesque fish-market, lonely male figures with long beards - the memory of her father, or a string of children on a loaded mountain donkey’s back sent off by a decent, idealized female figure, traditionally dressed – mother Ana and Matija with sisters and brothers. These works are characterized by a pronounced artistic individuality, especially regarding composition and reduced colouring, hence specific atmosphere and suggestiveness of pictorial expression.
During her stay at Ivo Andrić’s house as a housemaid*, she often had a chance to be in the company of respectable writers, artists and noble ladies who were the symbol of jovial urban world, colourful, with new wave in fashion and everyday life. She would remember Ivo and his partner Vera for a long time, as well as the whole gallery of people, friends and colleges, the charming inventory of vital energy that endowed Matija with additional strength and new motifs. Most of her works although untitled and undated, were inspired with the moments of daily routine at Andrić’s; hence, being an outstanding neoprimitivist, she would employ them creating new events and mystical encounters, known only to her fancy.
She began to paint at Lisa and Oto Bihalji - Merin’s house*. In the creative atmosphere of a warm home full artistic works with the most various pictorial sensibilities, shelves overloaded with books from top to bottom, Matija was ready. It was an encounter with own self. Without any artistic education or knowledge of artistic skill, Matija’s meta-language was spontaneously born. That self-knowledge as a form of self- therapy through unconsciously produced metaphors expressed with evasion of shapes and colours is not rare with outsider artists; furthermore, it is the inevitability, the only way of communication, hence the carelessness about ignorance, courageous artistic expression, uncensored and genuine, with childish visions. In addition to her reminiscences of childhood, Matija painted her immediate past, even presence. It could best be seen in visible insignia of modern, urban life – the portraits of fashionably dressed women with make-ups, fanciful hair-styles, serene images in bright robes, polka dotted or striped like in fashion magazines of the time.
Matija Staničić’s oeuvre demonstrates all vital values of truly naïve art, not folklore, souvenir-like and trashy as imposed by media, but instinctive and neoprimitivist as described by art historians, not journalists, which is partly seen in the oeuvre of our greatest classics: Save Sekulić, Ilija Bosilj Bašičević, Bogosava Živković etc. Consequently, a strict foreground, visionary paining, lack of perspective, raw colouring revealing raw vision, narration, intertwine of realistic and dream-like contents and tendency towards automatism and linear nervature are fundamental characteristics of works done by most prominent naive and marginal artists.
From the moment of display, the works of this modest, lyrical, female art brut artist, although never exhibited before, will reveal her fragility, hypersensitivity, quite original and fresh artistic invention that is to be an unavoidable part in the continuity of naive and marginal art, not only in this region. The beauty and truly esthetic value of Matija’s original artistic realizations will soon become well-known to the galleries and museums worldwide.
We are now proud that our museum as the reservoir of naïve and marginal art within global frame has the honour to unveil to the public and promote in a dignified way the works of this superb artist.

Nina Krstić