Marin Majic’s powerfully atmospheric paintings distil moments of narrative friction within his dreamlike, imagined world. Through the dark leaves of Majic’s verdant environments, figures emerge in a series of entanglements concerning themes such as intimacy, isolation, and power. They find themselves in each other’s grip or in the vast palm of the natural world, imbuing each painting with an implied story. But plot never crystallises into something beyond mere suggestion, as Majic’s subjects remain inaccessible to us: they are often portrayed with eyes closed, or with their heads turned away from the viewer. Moreover, they are rendered with stark shadows and texture, allowing their forms to blend into their surroundings.

Majic’s colour palette, produced using marble dust, oil, wax, and turpentine, is dominated by the various shades between green and grey. He employs coloured pencils to add tone and texture to his canvases, which have a heavily worked, grooved surface. To accentuate focal points within the compositions, Majic harnesses the warm, bright hues of firelight and the cool blues of water. Elements of each landscape – trees, water, grass – are represented with a fluidity that recalls the visual imprecision of distant memory or dreams. Overall, the mediating hand of the artist is pronounced, producing an uncanny Romanticism that emphasises the impermanence of human life and the distortions produced by representation.

Marin Majic (b. 1979, Frankfurt, Germany; lives and works in Brooklyn, New York) studied at the Academy of Visual Arts, Zagreb, Croatia. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Galerie Isa, Mumbai; Marc Straus Gallery, New York; and ARNDT Fine Art, Berlin. Majic’s paintings have also been included in group exhibitions organised by Mana Contemporary, Jersey City; the Knoxville Museum of Art; and the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, New York.