Branka Ridicki's paintings have a story: the motifs of her urban homeland, given in a seemingly simple, sincere, naïve way, frames of memory presented with almost childlike familiarity. However, it is an algebra of urban template patterns, a peculiar chessboard on which simplified house forms are arranged in a coherent, interrelated way. Her paintings have no centripetal focus. She calmly assembles and disassembles her sets. She deals with a balanced subdivision of the painter's field, settling it, at times densely and at times sparsely, without fear of considerable open space. She emphasizes the partitioning of space through clear correlated surfaces of different colours, and reinforces its importance with drawn marks. The painter's semantic suggestions are enriched by written texts or the addition of collage.
Guido Quien, 2016
