Escape

Olga Karlovac

20 - 31 July 2021

Olga Karlovac returns to Willesden Gallery to present ‘escape’, a solo exhibition accompanying her latest book by the same name.

The artist takes us on a visual journey through the streets of her Croatian hometown. Rather than documenting famous sights or recognisable characters, Olga Karlovac uses her camera to create lasting impressions of fleeting moments and emotions.

By blurring the lines between reality and poetic interpretation, and working exclusively in black and white, Karlovac’s photography takes on a dreamlike quality. Her abstracted images invite the viewer to linger, lose track of time as she leads us down winding streets, recognising the familiar within the barely there.

in the blink of an eye
in the moment between day and night,
somewhere at the edge of darkness and light
walking down an empty road below the mountain of memories
while strong winds from the north carve your marks all over my skin
i feel your breath
and i imagine…

Olga Karlovac lives and works in Zagreb. Self-taught and self-published, her work has been widely exhibited across Europe and the US. ‘escape’ concludes a trilogy of internationally acclaimed books that has almost entirely sold out.