Atelier & Gallery Ostrman
The painterly and literary dialogue creates layered achievements in Tomislav Ostrman’s artistic approach. The "story" woven into the visual fabric unfolds on multiple levels, from literal reality to associations, often enriched with an intriguingly rich use of metaphors.
The depth of the scene ranges from apparent banality to touching on existential states, with carefully measured nuances across numerous segments. It is a broad spectrum of thematic clarity and mystery, a fusion of reality and imagination, with a constant deepening of the core idea.
Anecdotal elements are immediately apparent, while the gradual unveiling of hidden puzzles highlights the artist’s sense of wonder. Within the framework of visual clarity, compositional order, and geometric forms, occasional deviations from strict contour precision create cycles with varying focal points. All of this converges into a common denominator of iconography and atmosphere, reinforced by the original titles of the works, which emerge from a continuous creative drive, the strength of accumulated experience, and reactions to everyday situations.
A note of humor and self-irony runs through various thematic representations, predominantly interpreted through painterly stylization of realistic details. These details are often reduced to the simplicity of a sign, deliberately designed with symbolic connotations.
Ostrman surrenders to playfulness, which does not contradict the precise construction of his paintings. Beneath the perfection of execution lies a hidden vibrancy, where a sense of fluidity emerges in the space of memory and intuition. He does not shy away from subtle expressionist currents, present in the heightened emotional tone of his style. The principle of disciplined composition, reminiscent of the precision of architectural blueprints, remains intact despite the freer painterly gestures.
The paintings are most often organized with a symmetrical layout, defining spaces through square segments, geometrized horizontal and vertical elongated surfaces, circular and semicircular forms, and figurative shapes. The spatial dimension is achieved through shifts in chromatic values, their dynamics, and light, often creating a paradoxical impression of frozen time. With pure, radiant colors and minimal tonal transitions, Ostrman reveals the essence of the adopted environment, capturing characteristic scenes that reinterpret the fundamental concepts of the South.
He is drawn to the sea in a painterly calm, to vessels and people in an imaginary harbor of beauty, where inherited poetry transforms into a personal vision. However, there is also a different rhythm, where brightness gives way to opposing moods. The contrasts are not drastic, but the places where smiles reside become more limited.
Ostrman shapes his Mediterranean painterly travelogues with sunlight and bel canto harmony, enchanted by the magic of narrative. He meets this high standard of order with the façade of his paintings, rich in ornamentation, illuminated by rosette-like colors and precisely defined lines. Within a network of bands, he depicts sailors with a reduced physicality—authentic characters of their environment and way of life—portraying them with understanding, heart, and brush. These figures are present yet filled with anticipation, forming a polyptych of similar characters across multiple paintings, infused with charmingly eccentric elements.
In deepening his thematic continuity, an intriguing series features the open sea and horizon, with a "parking" line of numerous sailboats and their corresponding vertical reflections on the water’s surface. This is Ostrman’s synthesis of travel, the sea, and vessels—a fragment of an infinite multitude in time and space, a symbol of existence. He thoughtfully repeats this motif across several paintings, with slight variations in execution, following the symbolism of directional movement and the point of arrival.