Iva Kozul Salihagic

Lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia

Artist statement

My practice begins with questions about what shapes us: what we inherit, what we desire, what we fear, what we create, and what we may ultimately destroy. Working primarily with ceramics, sculpture, installation, and light, I use familiar forms and materials to explore the tensions between the intimate and the collective, beauty and discomfort, vulnerability and strength. Clay is central to my work because it carries touch, memory, pressure, damage, and transformation. I am interested in what happens when an object that initially attracts the viewer begins to reveal something less comfortable beneath its surface. Humor, contradiction, exaggeration, and beauty often become ways of approaching subjects that are considerably more serious. My work moves between personal experience and broader questions about contemporary life. I explore inner conflict and identity, family memory and inherited traditions, our relationship with nature and consumption, technology and the futures we are creating for ourselves. At other times, I return to something as fundamental as the rhythm of a heartbeat or the trace left by a piece of family lace pressed into clay. Across these different subjects, I am interested in traces: those left by people, objects, choices, and time. My works do not seek to provide answers. I want them to create a moment in which something familiar becomes slightly uncertain, inviting the viewer to look again and decide what it means for themselves.

Artwork