Photo By Gail

Maja Ruznic’s paintings often combine difficult subject matter with seductive color and a sense of spirituality. The artist, who spent time in an Austrian refugee camp after fleeing the war Bosnia, has said that  The Past Awaiting the Present / Arrival of the Drummers (2023) “looks at how multiple things can be true at the same time: birth, violence, pain, suffering, joy, and music.” She has described the horizontal format of the painting as inherently linear, implying a past, present and future. The movements suggested  by the figures’ feet — some in profile and others pointed toward the viewer — collapse these temporalities into a single, symbolic image.

Photographed at The Whitney Museum in NYC as Part of the 2024 Biennial