Ana Bedrina spoke about Alanna’s fascinating life and her first steps in the world of art. Croatian-Italian academy educated painter Igor Gustini spoke about her paintings and technique.
An exhibition of the art of Canadian Alanna Marohnic, whose father moved to Canada from the Rijeka area, opened at the Pula branch office of the Croatian Heritage Foundation on the 1st of July with many emigrants from around the world on hand. Ana Bedrina spoke about her fascinating life and her first steps in the world of art. Croatian-Italian academy educated painter Igor Gustini spoke about her paintings and technique.
Her area is illustration with a strong surrealist component. At times her compositions achieve impressive drawing skill with a strong dramatic connotation and the lightness of a fairy tale. Each work “conceals” one or more stories not at first evident and the viewer needs to make an effort to find the tale and to follow the thread of this visual twine composed of dense lines and colours, often with interwoven decorative and naturalistic elements that fill the entire canvas in an overall compositional balance. Alanna Marohnic is a very special artist, consistent and recognisable in her work. In each of her paintings we discover small bits of our secret world, Igor Gustini said at the opening.
The exhibition was an opportunity to view the art, but also for pleasant socialising with our emigrants from around the world who are visiting Pula and Istria County as a whole in July.
Alanna Marohnic was born in Canada into a family of artists and began painting as a child. Alanna’s father is a Croatian and the family has frequently visited the country. Her Canadian mother was a well-known and respected painter that staged numerous exhibitions and music gatherings in Croatia, also being active in music. Her mother was her first teacher and advisor in painting. Spending time in her mother’s studio, she learned that some things can only be achieved with long, patient and preserving effort.
Without her mother’s patience, Alanna says, she would hardly have the strength to continue with her work, often very demanding, although always ultimately very gratifying. With this family upbringing and her unfettered learning of painting, she found the environment of an applied arts secondary school very constrained.
By her seventeenth year, Alanna says, she felt that she wanted and must dedicate her life to painting alone. This personal revelation was a source of serenity. She later met her future husband Ivan, a Canadian musician, who comprehended her world and is a permanent source of support.
With these strong foundations and an enormous quantity of self-discipline and self-effacement, Alanna has achieved much. Her paintings are sold around the world, which makes her happy. She continues to want to paint all day long.
Where Alanna’s mind, spirit, hand and brush touch the canvas, the result is spiritual: an indescribable beauty; we are grateful and somehow unburdened by a created abstraction and a tangible spirituality. By her suggestion our perception is transformed from magical realism to mystical realism, writes Scot Kyle under the title Terrible Beauty.
Text by: Ana Bedrina
