Born: 1999, Croatia
Profession: Photographer
Lives and works: Antwerp, Belgium
A DESPERATE SANCTUARY
My work explores the dissonant landscape of “comfort.” Comfort is often a lie of simplicity. Traditionally associated with softness and safety, yet for many it emerges through rituals of self-inflicted pain and substance-induced escapism. I investigate this fractured reality of survival, focusing on the moment where the body becomes a site of both trauma and relief. By layering medical imagery, and digital abstractions of physical wounds, I construct dense, unreadable textures that mirror the psychological weight and complexity of these experiences. The work resists immediate legibility or visual pleasure; instead, it asks the viewer to remain within discomfort until it slowly transforms into empathy. The intention is to explore the ambiguity between beauty and horror. By translating the “ugliness” of scars, the work mirrors the internal logic of escapism, where a destructive act is transformed into a necessary sanctuary. Within this tension, the body becomes both archive and refuge, revealing the desperate, often invisible sanctuary some individuals find within their own scars.
