Kristina Žetko

Kristina Žetko is an experimental abstract photographer who has exhibited in countries such as Sweden, Slovenia, and Canada. Recent solo exhibitions include Kulturhuset Fregatten, Gallery Gjuteriet, and Street Gallery in Sweden as well as Fotogalerija STOLP and Galerry Tir in Slovenia. Her awards include the Helge Ax Johnsons Scholarship, the Estrid Ericsons Scholarship, and project funding from the City of Ljubljana in Slovenia.

Like a celestial lightning storm, the camera-less abstract photography of Kristina Žetko brings contemporary abstraction to an entirely different level with her analogue surfaces which appear like lucid hallucinogenic fantastical galaxies from another realm. She works in both color and black-and-white, but we will be focusing on the color compositions for this article. These neon-colored surfaces amidst a sfumato-ocean of darkness are created in the darkroom using light-sensitive photographic paper. Using both photographic chemical and paint, she distorts these surfaces onto handmade negatives which are tinted and become projected onto light-sensitive photographic paper through an enlarger. These carefully composed compositions are structured through thoughtful balance of light, colour filtration, and exposure time, so they are not improvisational, but rather strategic.

Kristina Žetko’s contributions to contemporary art comes from advancing the purpose of two-dimensional abstraction beyond digital means or through painting. Her unfamiliar surfaces look thoroughly photographic in sheen and elasticity but unfamiliar in configurations which appear like chaotic realms from an other-worldly dimension. The consistent analogue process reveals not only ingenuity, but also a clean, polished surface without the artificiality of digital automation. Besides fantastical galaxies and far off dimensions, these compositions bloom and blast in a similar manner to electricity or how neurons in the brain reflect a ‘spark’ of life within human biology. The biological and celestial appearance of these abstract analogue photographic compositions reveal a rare complexity to abstraction only achieved through comprehensive experimental processes which she has concocted like a mad scientist in the laboratory. An alchemical reactionary concoction and brew which creates a chemistry of rich stimulating surfaces which the viewer can lose themselves in for hours at a time.

Brainstorm V. 24 (pictured above) is one of Kristina Žetko’s most dynamic pieces. The composition fulfills the storm-like qualities best within her portfolio and the crackling lightning-like linearity and forms in the center almost appear like the Eye of Horus, complete with mythological gold tones. In this ever-expansive galaxy of a composition, the audience can absorb the fine complexity in the unique analogue surface. 

With a complex experimental attitude and practice, Kristina Žetko advances the purposes of abstraction in the contemporary era. What was considered a dying artform only restricted to the confinements of digital applications, painting, and sculpture, has been given a breathe of new life in contemporary discourse. In these realms of dream-like sequences, we become lost in the darkness and brought forth through the light of lightning-esque linear forms which represent and symbolizes the spark of life. These ‘thunder bolts’ and cataclysmic dimensions within these analogue photographic works leave impressions of authentic sustainability in advancing aesthetics to have far deeper purpose in the field of abstraction.

www.kristinazetko.art