Magda Dulčić: Island of Women
Gallery Juraj Plančić
20/09 – 01/11
Opening: Friday, 20. 09. at 7pm
“Magda Dulčić: Island of Women” showcases the comic art, drawings and animated films of the Hvar artist Magda Dulčić (1965-2016). Originally from Rudina, near Stari Grad, Dulčić was one of the first female comic authors in Croatia. She graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Split, where she became particularly interested in drawing and comic art. She worked at Zagreb Film, a world-renowned animated film studio, both independently and collaboratively, on several award-winning animations. The exhibition collects works from the Museum’s Magda Dulčić Collection archive, making these works available to the public for the first time. The exhibition will include animated films made by Dulčić for Zagreb Film.
Referencing Dulčić’s comic strip “City of Women,” one of the first comics published by the artist in the magazine Patak, the exhibition will place special emphasis on Dulčić’s many works that express connections between women, the sea, island, and geographical identity. The emotional and cultural connection with the sea and her native island occupies a central place in Dulčić’s boundless creativity. Hvar’s bays with their flora and fauna were a constant inspiration when she created stories and new worlds in her drawings and comics. In her comics, the depiction of water along with femininity allows her to depict the intimately lived environment of the island, both life-affirming and demanding. The exhibition aims to encourage reflection on how Dulčić’s work expresses a fluid relation between female identity and the ecological peculiarities of island places.
In addition to Dulčić’s work, the exhibition will feature a series of drawings, commissioned from the artist Dr Gloria Oreb (b. 1972, Vela Luka), who will create drawings for Dulčić’s unfinished comics. In 2012, Dulčić wrote seven stories as templates for comics that she planned to publish in the form of a comic album, but her untimely death prevented the completion of this project. Foregrounding the commonality shared between female artist-islanders, Oreb’s interpretations will link her own experiences of island life and creativity with the worlds of Dulčić’s stories. Oreb’s drawings will honour the living memory of Magda Dulčić on her native island by underscoring the exhibition’s broader goal of exploring shared camaraderie in the artistic expression of island women.
Curator of the exhibition is dr. Jadra Ryle.