Artospective: Figurative Blue Paintings by Zrinka Budimlija.

An Interview with Zrinka Budimlija.

Who and where are you from? 

My Name is Zrinka Budimlija and I am originally from Zagreb, Croatia but I live in Cologne, Germany. I paint, but I am also an author and sped much of my time writing.

What brought you to Art? 

I have always been creative. Even as a kid, I would rather draw or write poems than anything else. As a teenager I went to an art school and afterwards I studied art in Zagreb and Cologne. I can spend hours painting or writing. It is the best way to spend my time apart from being with my family.

What is your driving force? 

Love of beauty and knowledge, that is something I would call my driving force. It is important to me to understand people, and to find beauty in the way we interact, even if it does not always seem beautiful. There is a poetry to life, and I am keen to find it and try to capture it in my work.

What kind of work you do and why? 

The paintings that I now paint are predominantly blue. I choose a limited palette of blues, whites and blacks. The inspiration for the paintings comes from old photos, either from my family, or photos that I find on flea markets. In my work I use abstract elements along with realism. This way I can split the moment shown on the photo from the space around it which allows me to try to evoke an imagined inner impression of the past moment.  

Tell us more about your thought process.

The way I think about the paintings and the photographs that preceded them is non verbal. I try to let my feelings steer me in the way I choose the motifs and the way I paint them. This is an excellent way to meditate and escape the tyranny of verbal and logical thinking, that is so highly valued in the western society. When I think with my feelings, I get this visceral response to what I am painting, and that shows me the direction I am supposed to go to.