Parallel Lines and Other Stories

Returning to the Belgrade art scene after several years, Đorđe Ozbolt presents a new body of paintings that continues his engagement with visual culture as a meeting point for memory, ideas, and histories. Executed on intimate wooden panels, the works maintain his signature tension between the familiar and the unexpected: figures, landscapes, and the occasional lone bird coexist within compositions that are precise yet off-kilter, playful yet edged with unease. Each painting operates like a small universe, self-contained yet resonant with broader cultural references.

The works draw on an exceptionally wide visual vocabulary, spanning Renaissance and postmodern art, colonial imagery, cartoons, still life, animals, landscapes, and pop culture. In Seven German Poets (2025), for example, subtle profiles of Germany’s cultural figures, including poet Rainer Maria Rilke, are playfully annotated with initials, shifting the homage toward the language of tagging and graffiti. In Piet’s Diet (2025), a Piet Mondrian–inspired grid provides a geometric backdrop for fragments of fish taken from Francisco Goya’s painting Still Life Three Salmon Steaks. Each panel, framed in walnut trays, demonstrates Ozbolt’s layering technique: familiar imagery reconfigured, producing works that feel known yet slightly askew.

The exhibition’s title, Parallel Lines and Other Stories, captures the balance between order and unpredictability. “Parallel lines” evoke systems or narratives that appear to run alongside one another but intersect unexpectedly. Classical forms collide with absurd or whimsical imagery; serene interiors may unravel into visual disruptions; figures occupy the picture field that shift between caricatured portraiture and political symbolism. These juxtapositions do not demand prolonged attention, but they encourage openness and curiosity. In many ways, the paintings revel in not knowing exactly where they are headed.

Accompanying the paintings are drawings on school-style colored hammer paper, playfully utilized instead of acrylic paint; while not literal sketches, each depicts a single, recognizable motif – be it a Picabia-inspired portrait or a Disney cartoon devil – paradoxically rendered on a scale larger than the paintings themselves. While the scale, materials, and compositional strategies align with his earlier practice, the motifs of all exhibited works are freshly imagined, reflecting a persistent engagement with cultural references through a playful, irreverent lens. This new series balances humor, accessibility, and unpredictability, offering artworks that are immediate, visually engaging, and quietly mischievous.

Text by Vanja Žunić