Kristin AB - AlexaKoko

Kristin A. Buechelmaier

Master in the History and Business of Art & Collecting
Sotheby’s New York

Aleksandra Kokotovic’s expressive, layered, abstract paintings, explores the internal conflict that we experience as human beings, striving to become whole, questioning our existence and our fundamental beliefs. Inspired by human existence, Blue Pill is a paradox between knowledge and ignorance. The “blue pill” is referenced in society as inhibiting knowledge yet the subjects of her work are uninhibited. The observer is thus challenged to create their own truth.

Kokotovic’s works include suggestions of ethereal and angelic figurative forms within intense passages of abstraction and within experimental lines and shapes. The subdued surface coupled with the use of sporadic vibrant colors, or geometric elements, play upon themes of the earthly and the celestial, and reflects the many intimate intricacies of the mind. As a nod to Surrealism, Kokotovic’s work seeks to unleash the creative potential of the unconscious mind. Her scope is wide-ranging, as she transforms her work into highly personalized mediums with one, singular voice of expression. Her use of abstraction is intricately inspired by the human spiritual journey and the quest for reaching a higher self. In the same spirit, her work is a testimony to the Consciousness, encompassing all the dimensions of space, matter and time, as her paintings dare the observer to look outside our material world.

In “Black, White, and Yellow in Astral Level”, Kokotovic re-interprets the normalized, categorized and defined ethnicities of today’s society. The subject of Kokotovic’s masterpiece challenges our norms, beyond ethnicity, uniting us as one body, mind and soul - to that end, three central figures are depicted in the same color scheme, redefining and questioning the necessity to distinguish ethnicities. The pieces are impeccably titled and act as another paradox between what the observer is viewing and what the observer is reading. This is intentional, to open the curious mind, allowing us to freely think and feel in another dimension.

Kokotovic’s brushstrokes are simultaneously spontaneous and orchestrated, as she brilliantly creates areas of texture juxtaposed with a smooth finish, which perfectly illustrates the transcendental state, inspiring the observer to reflect in awe and wonder of a world unknown both internally, within oneself, and externally. Thick strokes, paired with feathery and watery washes, result in the illusion of the subject disappearing while bold lines anchor the subject from emerging from the canvas itself. Her use of the linear line is strategically placed throughout her work, creating calmness and tranquillity. Often reaching beyond the canvas, her linear line also calls for the observer to expand their minds away from the physical, present work in-view to a contemplative dream-like, meditative state.

Kokotovic’s choice of color palette is also a paradox between the concept of the “blue pill” and the “red pill”. Predominantly in cool hues, the palette she uses in the series is tranquil and symbolic alluding to the harmonization of the mind, body, and soul. Her subjects are imaginative yet grounded in truth; she includes figurations of anonymous and enigmatic beings haloed in white alongside geometric, dreamy scapes, which seemingly exist within our own dreams and is masterfully expressed in the waking-life through each stroke of Kokotovic’s paintbrush.

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