"Serafita" (2022), my Instagram
Nuclear Nymphs
(click on the cute purple link above)
Short experimental movie with spoken poetry. Author (director, writer, producer, cast, videographer, director of photography, editor, glitch artist, poet, singer, performer): Petra Brnardic. Year: 2024
“Nuclear Nymphs” is a short experimental film, a poetic dance story about love, hatred and revenge. It is a continuation of a “Leviathan of Desire” from 2018. (and, in some fragments, of “Succubi”, “Mermaid Song” and “The Black Swan Flaming Ocean”).
I weave a web of my own microcosmic narrative about fatal sirens, ondines, naiads, sea and water mythical creatures, such as their indirect foremother Tiamat, the dragon goddess of primordial chaos, but also vampires, succubi and aliens. I’ve been dealing with mythological creatures through my poetry and visual art since the turn of the century, and this project would be a testament to my obsession with all facets of female archetypes and the ways in which my fluid and multi-layered identity draws from that rich source and vast pool. The turbulent, dark and deep ocean is a metaphor for emotions, and the violent verbal images of seduction, castration and destruction are sadomasochistic and fetishistic fantasies after the death of a relationship that was meaningful to me or after trauma, which triggered numerous questions, breaks, pain and confusion. I nurture wings to rise from agony like a phoenix from the ashes or fight against despotic authority and the Name of the Father, in the shelter of wild nature and naked elements with which I am making love. I sexualize anger in order to create dramatic tension, and I process all motifs through the reconstruction of poetic language and playing with stylistic figures. I try to create a hypnotic, magical and mystical atmosphere, through linguistic acrobatics and ritualistically repetitive singing similar to a medieval liturgy or madrigal, in order to heal trauma and psychic fractures and to be reborn, as if from salt foam.
It is also significant that my father was a sailor and my name means “the rock”, and here my fictitious (anti)heroine acts as the ultimate siren who fights against what the Father psychoanalytically symbolizes, and in that battle the primal wildness of nature crushes and disintegrates sailing ships as ornate sea phalluses and returns the ocean to its primordial fold. In a way, I touch on Electra’s complex, but inversely: I long for the Father as a structuring monad that I never had, and all the characters of my story are contrary to his image and features of the soul. But trouble, sacrifice and temptation occur when the symbolic paternal backbone is broken and the ocean of Id goes wild and insane.
The video was based on a poem I wrote immediately in English (I started writing poetry in it during quarantine, when I discovered the gorgeous, metamorphosing and meandering possibilities of a language that is not my mother’s tongue and with which I can play endlessly, juggling derivatives, synonyms and even words which I invented and dreamed up myself).
I interlaced the film with igniting sensuality, with a focus on oral fixation (biting and sucking/licking, i.e. schizoid vs. depressive position in the psychoanalytic theory of the formation of object relations).
In “Leviathan of Desire”, also a film noir of sorts (although the crimes, collisions and psychological car crashes are blossoming within in both movies), I spoke about my melancholy, longing and desire, and through the relationship between a man and a woman I showed images and scenes of a nostalgic paradise, arcadia and utopia mixed with creepy and anxious. The pictures are memories of a summer vacation at sea on an Adriatic island, which aroused deep emotions in me. I unveiled interpersonal connection, sensuality, ferocious passion and tenderness, opposed to the feeling of loneliness and the fears that are triggered by it. Leviathan is a sea monster that, in my story and interpretation, casts spells on the lovers, and I enveloped everything in a black and white, silvery-pearl haze of surreal apparitions, and the maritime scenery is riddled with flashbacks to man-made elements, as recollections, foreshadowings, parallel reality, allusions or symbols (storefront, tunnel, key, chains, neon lights, glittering underground club tinsel, mirror, glass shards). The monstrosity of the mythological creatures alludes to the fatal nature of attraction, to fascination, but also to the destructiveness, toxicity and poisonousness of the obsession that a love relationship produces. The island, the seaside, the beach, the summer breeze and the darkness were a symbol for love isolation, where the fantasmagoric realities of idealization and disillusionment intertwine in a fervent tango of willful blindness, but also for the alienation of an individual (me) who is eternally searching for something that will truly reflect her core, but her fate is resigned to being in a haunted tower locked in herself waiting to fruitfully face a demon and ride him on the way to a potential happy ending of a personal saga. In other words, I turn my reality into fiction and I use many layers of building suspense, playing with visual imagery and capricious whimsicality of the words. They are my weapon and my surgical knife. And the fusion of both mediums serves me as a torch for navigation through painful imbroglio of the jungles of my mind.
(I was very hesitant to post them, but I will jump into wildfire anyway)
"Neptune Avenue (Overdose on Dreams)"
Siva Gallery, Zagreb, July 2024 (ghost exhibition in a ballroom of mirrors, without a single soul except my pictorial and poetic avatars)
As a person mesmerized by cosmos, astronomy and ancient astrology, but diving in it in fragmented particules of interest, I referenced Neptune as a planet of dreams, subconscious, instability, creativity, intuition, and most of all, altered states of mind (hallucinations, intoxication, near-death experience, dissociation, depersonalisation, derealization, dissociative fugue, memory loss, hypnagogic states, somnambulism, dream paralysis, hypnosis) and a love for a good drink or even narcotic. That cool, distant planet symbolizes escapism, frantic flight from reality, which is so painfully rough on the edges and laced with sharp teeth, like a vagina dentata. In every possible way reality has become unbearable and the Real is penetrating like a horrific pterodactylus. I am telling a story of a person reminiscent of Vivien Leigh in „Streetcar named Desire“, who famously said „I don't want reality, I want dreams“ and who always relies on the kindness of strangers, which is very risky and dangerous inclination, if not straightforward impulsive, and which I practiced through my hazardous youth. When the beaks of terrible bird of the all-devouring world peak the sidereal flesh to deep cuts and bruises, it is time to recoil in a cocoon and build imaginary world of fantasms, with equally imaginary friends (furry, unicorn, invisible daimon for a bedtime confession, angel on the shoulder and – alas – devil on another). I dream of sugar cotton candy clouds in rainbow colors, I am losing myself in a ballroom of mirrors which are built in a strange, warped way to show myself an illusion, an idealized cinematic creature, a soft, buzzy fairy that will lick my tear and pop me a poppy dew. I hallucinate levitating neon avenues above crystal skyscrapers, car bullets flying above like exotic flower pollen, translucent snakes and jellyfish in the skies, myriads of hot urban ads that flicker like fireflies and I see a mirage in the desert, maybe even a milk and honey and coconut pool in the oasis, after I escaped an abhorrent murderer with obscure mask, thin as a skeleton, but fast as a ray of light. Also, films and horror movies are a way to gloss away from the jaws of ugly realism, to almost orgasm in the midst of being scared to death, and then to gasp loudly from relief, as if I dived out explosively from the ocean, like a volcano burst, puking lava. My self-portraits and body images are in contorted poses, suggesting ecstasy, feverish daydreaming, a bliss of transponing agony to pure pink euphoria and violet softness of the limbs and veins. I am turned into my own desire, and I transcend the flesh into the sacriledge of erotically charged holy icons. I am chewing harsh and rusty diamonds of nightmares and turn them to dreamland, sometimes leaving the blurred line between the two, with the accent on something artificial, otherworldly, fictional, fantastical, chimeric, like phantoms creeping in the victorian graveyard or water nymphs emerging from the wiggling, rippled lake. A body as an ideal is sensual and erotic, alluring and mesmerizing, it invites to its nest to lull the lost inbread creatures into its venereal symphony, and skin is sliding, hiding monsters, youthful and beautiful on the outside, but treacherous and venomous in the depths and throes of its owner – master of puppets. Of kittens underneath her crinoline. I connect spiritual and paranormal states of neptunian narcotic influence and imminent vicinity of the flesh, and the aching yearning to stitch the wounds and become hole again.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
1997. Student club of Philosophy Faculty, Zagreb, Croatia
2000. The Queens, TEST! festival of theatre, Zagreb, Croatia (with Ksenija Kordic)
Between horns, Gjuro 2 club, Zagreb, Croatia (with Ksenija Kordic)
2001. Gallery St. Quirinus, Sisak, Croatia
2003. A voice from the gothic well, Alternative institute, Mostar, Bosnia and
Herzegovina
2004. Gjuro 2 club, Zagreb, Croatia
2005. Marchioness of pain, KIC, Zagreb, Croatia
2006. Schizomania, Gallery Artenativa, Zagreb, Croatia
2011. Rubedo, NANO Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2013. Velvet Underground, Striegl Gallery, Sisak, Croatia
2015. Zagreb Book Festival, MUO Zagreb, Croatia
2016. Walpurgisnacht, Boonika Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2019. Borderline, Fotoklub Split, Split, Croatia
2019. Fatamorgana, Siva Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2000. Sisak youth salon, Sisak, Croatia
2001. Students from the class of prof. Sutej, Gallery Galzenica, Velika
Gorica, Croatia
2002. Second Sisak youth salon, Sisak, Croatia
2003. Sisak in Zagreb, Attack club, Zagreb, Croatia
Women, Attack club, Zagreb, Croatia
Third Sisak youth salon, Sisak, Croatia
2004. Sisak artistic circle, Gallery Striegl, Sisak, Croatia
Absolutely baroque, Horvat house, Varazdin, Croatia
Great culture fair, SC, Zagreb, Croatia
2005. FONA, international festival of new art, Hartera, Rijeka, Croatia
Eros and Pornos, Gallery Striegl, Sisak, Croatia
Print to Art, MMC Luka, Pula, Croatia
2006./2007. Selfportrait: a Show for Betlehem
– Betlehem, Palestina
– Santa Fe, Argentina
– Napoli, Italy
– SzczecinSzczecin, Poland
– Rosario, Argentina
2008. Kliker!, international festival of pop-poetry, SC, Zagreb, Croatia
2009. Violated violator, Generation x – female perspectives, Medika club, Zagreb, Croatia
2010. Zagreb Youth Salon, HDLU Zagreb, Croatia
2011. Forest Art Auction, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Photodistorzija, Zuccato Gallery, Porec, Croatia
New Year's Eve Great group exhibition of artists, Greta Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2012. NUS (Tampon Generation), Aquarium Bacvice, Split, Croatia
Antisalon, Medika Club, Zagreb, Croatia
2013. NUS 2 (Taboo), MKC Split, Croatia
Martyrs, Zadar, Croatia
Martyrs, Zagreb, Croatia
2014. 23rd Days of Croatian Cinematography, Kino SC, Zagreb, Croatia
Kastav Film Festival, Kastav, Croatia
Komikaze po Puli, Pula, Croatia
Ohoho Festival, AKC Medika, Zagreb, Croatia
Komikaze na-20 obljetnici akc pekarne Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia
VATRA.Toplina.Silina., Trenutak39, Zagreb, Croatia
Komikaze, Tolmin/Sotocje, Slovenia
Exquisite Corpses, Fort Turtian, Pula, Croatia
StripSalon, Novi Sad, Serbia (with Komikaze)
World animation festival, Kino Tuškanac, Zagreb, Croatia
3rd Croatian Triennale of Self-Portrait, PUO Samobor, Croatia
2015. Kastav Film Festival, Kastav, Croatia (with short experimental movie „Fever“)
„Crack Festival“, Forte Prenestino, Rome, Italy
Zadruga Praksa, Pula, Croatia
Femicomix, Kino Šiška – Mesto žensk, Ljubljana, Slovenia
47. Revue of Croatian Cinematography, City Library „Ivan Goran Kovacic“, Karlovac, Croatia
3rd Biennale of Painting, HDLU Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
2016. Komikaze & OFICINA ARARA, Porto, Portugal
Komikaze - Femicomix, Le Garage L., Forcalquier, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Komikaze - Femicomix, AKC Nigdjezemska, Zadar, Croatia
Komikaze - Femicomix, Strip Festival AltCom, Folkets Park, Malmo, Sweden
Drunken Film Festival, Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Girona Film Festival, Girona, Spain
Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest, London, UK
12th Revue of one minute film, Kinodvorana Za-Te Plus, Zagreb
Night of video and performance, City Museum, Sisak
Pivilion: ~co-op~ , 25th Slavonian Biennale, Borders of visibility, Osijek, Croatia
2017. Paura Festival Internacional De Cine De Terror De Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Corvallis Queer Film Festival, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
AccessCode Film Festival, Bangalore, India
Komikaze Femicomix - Ratatata Fest, Macerata, Italy
Media Mediterranea 19: Digital Romance, Titov park, Pula, Croatia
DEEP TRASH IN THE UNDERWORLD, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. London, UK
Art Camp Empeduja, Antonio Lauer Beach, Rijeka, Croatia
MIRACLES, video art festival, Valkenburg, Netherlands
Day and night of video and performance, Sisak, Croatia
Lovepiece, Galerija Galženica, Velika Gorica, Croatia
2018. Pussy´s Smoke, Esseker Centar, Osijek, Croatia
MARATHONA GEOFILM, Cittadella, Padova, Italy
GIFEST#6, Subotica, Serbia
Komikaze, Design District, Old Military Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia
F12: Free art display | Duga Resa, Croatia
F12: Free art display | Karlovac, Croatia
F12: Free art display | Lovinac, Croatia
F12: Free art display | Zagreb, Croatia
"Inferno", FotoFilm Festival Tijuana, Mexico
Media Mediterranea 20 - Nature and Technology, SKUC, Titov park and MSUI Pula, Croatia
Poetry In Preparation (video poetry evening), Prozori Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia
Zeljezara Festival - Visual Poetry And Prose Mix, Striegl Gallery, Sisak, Croatia
50th Revue Of Croatian Cinematography, Tuskanac Cinema , Zagreb, Croatia (participating with two short experimental movies, "Leviathan Of Desire" and "Masquerade") - received special acknowledgement and certificate for the first one
2019. TeePublic Gallery Show, John Doe Gallery Brooklyn, New York, USA
Hystorical Madness: Performative Studies of a Case: Slet - Memory of a Space (group choreography), organized and curated by Kustoska platforma, KNAP Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Komikaze, Noise Mobility Festival, Munchen, Germany
LiftOff Sessions: Short Indie Movies Online Film Festival, June Edition
Hystorical Madness: Performative Studies of a Case: Performance Marathon, organized and curated by Kustoska platforma, KNAP Center, Zagreb, Croatia
Fu:Bar/expo, AKC Medika, Zagreb, Croatia
La Collezione XXX, Ospizio Giovani Artisti, Rome, Italy
Nudita, Ospizio Giovani Artisti, AMACI Contemporary Day and Rome Art Week, Rome, Italy
STIFF Film and gif festival, SKC Gallery Rijeka, Croatia
17th Festival of the First, Performance Art Multimedia Festival, KNAP, Zagreb, Croatia
Vite, Morte e Miracoli, Ospizio Giovani Artisti, Roma, Italy
Format C | #pivilion_dot_net, Scheier, Čakovec
Is there any art after internet?, HDLU Pula, Pula, Croatia
2020. Amore?, Ospizio Giovani Artisti, Rome, Italy
MystiCon Independent Film Festival, Roanoke, Virginia, USA
Deep Trash Turkish Delight, Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, London, UK (postponed due to Covid)
14th Vox Feminae Festival, Zagreb, Croatia
Thessaloniki Queer Art Festival 2020, Thessaloniki, Greece
"Nesvrstani" Art Fair, Lauba, Zagreb, Croatia
Thessaloniki Queer Art Festival at Hosek Contemporary, Berlin, Germany
ALC Videoart Festival, Alicante, Spain
Inquiry Inc. 2020. #pivilion_dot_net, Booksa, Zagreb, Croatia
Inquiry Inc. 2020. #pivilion_dot_net The Wrong, Scheier Centre, Cakovec, Croatia
Night of the Sisak video art, Sisak, Croatia
Darkroom Film Festival, London, United Kingdom
Fu:bar/Expo, AKC Medika, Zagreb, Croatia
Miracle Film Festival, Sanibel, Florida, USA
Pop-up Exhibition, Striegl Gallery, Sisak, Croatia
2021. Horror Lust Film Festival
T-Short Animated Film Festival
Gutterbliss Temporary Testival, online movie festival
Thessaloniki queer film festival 2021, Thessaloniki, Greece
Di Letti e Castighi, OGA (S)exhibitions, Ospizio Giovani Artisti, Rome, Italy
Collaborations: „C Over?“, performance collaboration with Quizzical Körper, AKC Medika, Zagreb, Croatia
From 2012 I am the member of Croatian Association Of Visual Artists.
AWARDS
2000. Special award of the Sisak youth salon
2002. Main award of the Sisak youth salon (sharing with Zdenko Marenic)
2018. Special acknowledgement for my short experimental movie "Leviathan Of Desire" from 50th Revue Of Croatian Cinematography, Tuskanac Cinema , Zagreb, Croatia
2019. SM-Art, award for best short BDSM story, Booksa, Zagreb, Croatia
OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS
2006. Book of poetry "Cuts"
2007. Participation with four drawings in the Antology of croatian erotic drawing "Eros and Pornos" by
Djuro Vandjura
WEB – links to portfolios
http://www.saatchiart.com/petrabrnardic
http://petrabrnardic.blogspot.hr/
http://komikaze.hr/comic/petra-brnardic/33
http://petrabrnardicpandemonium.blogspot.hr/
https://www.behance.net/petrabrnardic
http://deliciousvolcanicvolpina777.tumblr.com/
https://petrabrnardic.wixsite.com/mysite
Filmography:
Nigredo (2005)
Red Room (2010)
Tempest (2011)
Bedazzled Castle (2013)
Fever (2015)
Virus (2016)
Glossolalia (2017)
Ghost Bride (2018)
Leviathan of Desire (2018)
Visitors (2018)
Satan´s Porcupine (2018)
Masquerade (2018)
Electric Labyrinth (2019)
Tarantula (2020)
Neon Viper (2020)
Bloodbath (2021)
Diamond Hurricane (2021)
PUBLICATIONS
2005. Vijenac, Magazine for culture, literature and poetry, Zagreb
2005. Poetry, Magazine for literature and poetry, Zagreb
2006. Rijeci, Magazine for poetry, Matica Hrvatska Sisak
2007. Anthology of croatian erotic drawing "Eros and Pornos", by Djuro Vandjura (participating with four drawings)
2008. Rijeci, Magazine for poetry, Matica Hrvatska Sisak - "Division of a Multi-Identity Subject" - essay about my poetry by filmmaker and poet Damir Radic
2015. Stigmart10 Videofocus- special edition (pages 146 – 171) http://issuu.com/themultipleexposureproject/docs/self_as_subject_-_the_multiple_expo
2015. Self-As-Subject: The Multiple Exposure Project Zine (pages 73-75) http://issuu.com/stigmart10review/docs/stigmart_videofocus_special_edition/146
2015. Rijeci, Magazine for poetry, Matica Hrvatska Sisak
2016. Crna mamba (Black Mamba), online illustrated poetry book: https://issuu.com/petrabrnardic/docs/petra_brnardic_crna_mamba
2016. Zarez - excerpts from my newest poetry
2017. Gestalten Magazine: https://dgvcms2011.gestalten.com/community/blackboard/blackboard-entry-petra-brnardic
2019. A5 Magazine, October Issue
2020. Anthology of new Croatian poetry, translated to mandarin, China
FEATURINGS AND COLLECTIONS:
2014. New Portraits: About a Face Collection, on behalf of chief curator Rebecca Wilson and the Saatchi Art curation team and thanks to Katherine Henning, Assistant Curator at Saatchi Art
2014. Fresh Perspectives - Collection, curator: Bridget Carron, from Los Angeles, USA, on behalf of Rebecca Wilson, Saatchi Gallery
2015. New Portraits - Collection, curator: Hayley Miner from Santa Monica, California, Saatchi Gallery, on behalf of Rebecca Wilson, Saatchi Gallery
2016. Special guest star:
My two illustrations, "Holy Smoke!" and "Lolita", were shown on a wall during DJ party in Avalon Hollywood, Los Angeles, USA