Iva Laterza

Lives and works in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Artist statement

My practice is evolving across the fields of painting, photography and installation where I am developing visual language of abstract and semi abstract forms, with elements of urban landscape, architecture and graffiti, by using layering to intensify the image. Architecture stripped of its functionality is the point of departure. Artworks are further inspired by the derelict landscapes and architectural ruins in urban sprawl in the Balkans and metropolitan areas across the globe and investigate the visual experience of color, space, light, historical and political narratives, expansiveness of painting and its intervention in the architectural space. I am responding to rigidity and conservatism by introducing failure, ambiguity, strangeness, and exposing that which is hidden. In my view, art in such circumstances has potential to become tool for social and political negotiation. I observe historical and political dynamism unique to each architectural site through photography. In the medium of painting I explore my limits of commitment, focus, endurance; often capturing an ambience of design that is powerful, mechanical, delicate and emotional at the same time. Exploration of color is an important aspect of my creative process. I commit to building form through color, until the form has an impact. I practice this through experimentation with the relativity of color, generating the illusion of resistance, movement, weight, and attraction, in order to achieve complex pictorial...

Artwork