Martina Franić is a sculpturally oriented ceramicist. Above all, she is an exceptionally creative artist who expresses herself through volume in space. By exploring and using natural materials such as earth, ash, and clay, Martina Franić delves into the timeless themes of life, death, and transience. These fundamental materials inherently convey their own symbolism: earth represents new life, fertility, and birth; clay signifies corporeality and the earthly realm; while ash suggests impermanence and purification. The artist views ceramics as a process and a means of aligning herself with nature, subtly balancing the principles of nature with her artistic expression. Her works simultaneously appear contemporary and urban, as well as megalithic and primordial, carrying the imprints of time and space and the traces of generations.
Martina Franić has cultivated her unique artistic voice without relying on the strategy of appropriation or interpretation of others. Unconcerned with trends, she creates in her medium independently and unassumingly, without mentors or direct influences, guided by her own rules, personal drive and intuition. Nevertheless, the artist highlights the profound influence of the Croatian ceramicist Milana Hržić Balić and her simple geometric forms, free from excessive stylisation, created in warm brown clay with a pronounced materiality. Hržić Balić achieved a perfect balance between functionality and aesthetics in her ceramics. Although Franić does not directly emulate Hržić Balić, elements of her approach, visual language, and artistic thought are evident in Franić’s work.
Her affection for functional ceramics, particularly those made of wood, dates back to her earliest years. Her work demonstrates that ceramics can stand on equal footing with the “fine arts,” conveying its essence through fundamental visual values and a skilfully refined artistic language. Driven by the need for direct communication, the search for simple yet timeless truths, and the desire to understand herself, her existence, and her own identity, the artist has distilled her visual vocabulary to what is concise, simple, and symbolically recognisable, to what is intimate and direct. With a sense of proportion and the reduction of excess, a sophisticated interplay of form and texture, and above all, a unique poetic sensibility, this ceramicist’s works leave an exceptionally deep impression, both emotional and visual. They highlight her highly creative, always inspired, and primarily individual approach to the medium. The colour is ascetically refined, the surface often rustic yet highly tactile, and the technique precisely underscores simplicity and elemental qualities, as well as a connection to natural and cosmic energies. She employs the ancient art of wheel throwing, a longstanding tradition of handcrafting on the wheel that enriches the distinctiveness of each created piece, honed through self-teaching and the method of trial and error. Experimentation embodies both discipline and creative freedom. It combines careful consideration with spontaneity, certainty with risk-taking. In a sense, it is a daring yet clear-minded and endlessly inspiring pursuit that, liberated from the constraints of norms and rules, frequently yields the thrill of new and surprisingly innovative artistic solutions.
Martina Franić was born in 1973. She completed her studies at the Faculty of Textile Technology in Zagreb in 1995, specialising in Textile and Fashion Design. Since 2001, she has been a member of ULUPUH (Croatian Association of Fine Artists of Applied Arts) as a costume designer, and from 2018 also as a ceramicist. She has been a member of the Croatian Freelance Artists’ Association (HZSU) since 2002 and joined the Michelangelo Foundation in 2020.
She finds joy, excitement, and relaxation in the forms of nature and their creation. In her work, she explores intimacy through a process in which shapes are petrified based on the dynamic and ever-changing conditions of their manifestation.
Today, she sculpts clay, investigating its flexibility, memory, and expressive possibilities. She has participated in various seminars, courses, and ceramic design residencies both in Croatia and abroad. So far, she has showcased her ceramic works in approximately ten solo and group exhibitions.
The exhibition remains open until 28 July 2024.
