“OLIVERA BASTA – Like Time, Like Trace”

Prints on Handmade Paper

6 – 18 April 2026.

Olivera Basta has been present on the art scene of the Republic of Srpska, Serbia, and the wider region for two decades, and through her continuous practice she has developed a convincing artistic expression. She finds her creative impulses in natural forms, which she transforms through careful selection into stylised graphic signs. In their fragmentary nature, universal themes of identity, fertility, and other fundamental life processes can be read. A significant aspect of Basta’s practice is her experimental approach to handmade paper, which she produces herself and which becomes a unique matrix for printmaking. This process gives a distinct materiality, tone, and sensibility characteristic of her printmaking practice.

The prints of Olivera Basta represent a convincing artistic expression that, with a degree of optimism, affirms the vitality of the classical printmaking process and the inexhaustibility of its aesthetic potential. Works with a recognisable gestural quality, with stylised forms of seeds, leaves, droplets, or plum fruit, testify to the artist’s interest in universal themes of fertility, birth, and life cycles. The artist affirms the idea of self-knowledge through continuous questioning of her origin, local living and creative environment, as well as the initial impulses of artistic action. Her works point to the cultivation of the visual qualities of printmaking processes and the dense material texture of handmade paper, which are integral to her authorial concept.

Olivera Basta, born in 1986 in Banja Luka (née Šipka), graduated in printmaking in 2009 from the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka. At the same institution, she completed her master’s studies in painting in 2016 and enrolled in master’s studies in printmaking. She has been exhibiting since 2006, with 16 solo exhibitions in Banja Luka, Šabac, Pančevo, Belgrade, Prijedor, Sarajevo, Maribor, and others. She has participated in more than 180 group exhibitions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Romania, Poland, the United States, Canada, Slovenia, China, Italy, Spain, Hungary, North Macedonia, Georgia, and other countries. She is the recipient of several awards in printmaking. She is a laureate of the Graphic Collective “Small Seal Award” (2020) and “Great Seal Award” (2024).

She lives and works in Banja Luka.