Centuries ago, the philosopher Aristotle unwittingly outlined the workings of the modern camera when he described the near-magical effect from a solar eclipse: the openings between leaves on a tree – natural apertures – gathered the diffuse light from the sky above and focused it on the ground as animated, indirect images that revealed the Moon passing before the Sun.

Zdenko Krtić’s large-scale, photo-based prints similarly filter and project the environments around him: from the intimate spaces of family, home, and studio to the built environments of the city or the expansiveness of the natural world. Some works depict moments captured almost surreptitiously with the camera: views out a glass window, between the holes of a fence, or through a veil of linen. Others document changing faces or the growth of a garden, themes and variations tied to memory and history. Still others are shot as chance encounters that emerge suddenly from the flow of life. The camera becomes a means of studying the world.

But Krtić is first and foremost a painter, and in the tradition of artists who synthesize photography and painting strategies– from realists like Richard Estes to conceptualists like Gerhard Richter – his photographs are catalysts not only for grasping the visual environment but serve as foundations for gradually revealing its essence. He prints then rephotographs initial captures, sometimes merging the results with other images or processing them into surreal, painterly, even abstract transformations. Translucent wax painted over the results finally returns a mist of materiality to the camera’s flat image. A series of tondo paintings, round details “cored” from the large prints, further rematerialize the images through a buildup of visceral layers of wax, resin, and pigment on wood.

In a complicated reversal, Krtić’s revelations – about the ubiquity of looking and being looked at, about navigating distraction and surveillance, about seeking stability as we move through a sped-up and unsure world – are produced not by peeling back layers to expose something naked and raw. Instead, he illuminates our conditions through indirect or obscure perspectives, shifting transformations, and meaningful accumulations of processes and materials. Ultimately, the works invite us to participate in the artist’s ever-evolving efforts to understand the phenomena of life, not always by looking at them directly but seeing them through hazy and obscured specters of light and shadow.

Kathryn M. Floyd, Ph. D.

Kathryn Floyd is Associate Professor of Art History at Auburn University where she teaches and researches in the areas of modern and contemporary art and the history of photography.