We are pleased to invite you to the opening of the solo exhibition “Night Shift” by painter Emanuele Lekić in Lauba, the house for people and art. The opening of the exhibition is on Wednesday, April 19. 2023 at 8 p.m., and you can see it until May 2, 2023. during Lauba’s working hours.

Emanuela Lekić was born in 1996. in Rijeka, and in 2019. she graduated in painting from the Zagreb Academy in the class of Prof. Igor Roncevic. She exhibited at several collective and three solo exhibitions. During her studies, she was awarded the praise of the academic council, the audience award at the 14th Erste fragments and in 2021. the Crno drvo Laube award for the best independent artist at the Nesvrstani art fair.

Emanuela Lekić is a rising star whose quality has been recognized by the profession but also by numerous connoisseurs and art lovers who have included her original works of art in their homes and other living spaces.

Lekić belongs to the younger generation who constituted the new “new realities” of the 21st century, with which they reflect their figuration to the artists of the new realities of the 20th century. Therefore, we would not be wrong if we drew parallels through Emanuela’s work back to the Prague four (Uzelac, Varlaj, Trepše, Gecan).

The cycle of oil on canvas called “Night shift” was created during the isolation caused by the pandemic. Emanuela takes us for a walk through the streets of Zagreb and Rijeka and both artistically and symbolically creates a feeling of ambivalence in the experience of a deserted city. On the one hand, isolation in locations, which until now we only know as gathering places of a large number of people, provides a new and completely unusual experience of those well-known city spaces, and on the other hand, social isolation (which we did not choose ourselves) potentiates the unstoppable anxiety due to the uncertainty about one’s own future. However, walking through such deserted streets, we meet characters, people who belong to the painter’s social circle, on whose faces we do not see caution, but sometimes only a silent acceptance of our presence and sometimes an invitation to socialize, because there are not many of us who are brave enough to break the rules of isolation. In this context, we are not just observers but active participants in those small rebellious gatherings in the wee hours of the night.