MODRINE (SEE LANDSCAPE IMPRESSIONS)

Why postcards? Why do we still need handwritten postcards in this digital world? For nostalgia, romance, remembrance? Because there is a call within us for the personal, for time that we devote to someone? Maybe it’s a little bit of all of these. But if they are also personally painted and handwritten, made on hand-cut cardboard, hard enough to survive shipping, the mutual experience of the addressee and the sender is that much greater. I believe that personal effort, regardless of the field of activity, is the surplus value the modern world lacks. These postcards represent fifteen to twenty minutes of time that I dedicate to my friends with the intention of showing them attention. Time that I gladly take and devote to loved ones.

The space where I create postcards is always coastal, marine. As I already mentioned, it has been on Kornati, but also Hvar, Rab, and especially Pag, where we usually only spend a short time in the summer during our weekends in Gajac, and in Piran, where we have been going regularly since 2000, and for the while month of August.

The book blues – modrine is designed similarly to landscapes – krajine, with the same square format, except it is significantly lighter and, of course, less extensive in terms of content. The book of blues is kind of twin sister of the book of landscapes. It presents my personal view of experiencing summer days and thus the perception of seascapes, which through painting are more abstract than in my photographs. The reality of the photographic display is replaced on the postcards by the abstractness of my – mostly imaginary – artistic display. Thus, even in this new book a partial record of my thinking on the subject of the last few summers can be recognised. In this book the postcards or paintings are generally arranged in chronological order, through which the development – at least I hope some development is noticeable – of my interpretations of the seascape can be seen.

At the same time, the images are divided into thematic sets, related either to the location of their creation or to motif, from seascapes, horizons, Mediterranean and Istrian landscapes to clouds, geometric abstractions, the Montenegro coast, and fog with the red Piran lighthouse. Next to sets or individual postcards appear short notes from their recipients, their thoughts on what my postcards mean to them.

Some postcards are enlarged, others are the original size, others are reduced, others appear in pairs, which is otherwise a general feature of most postcards. Many of them can be viewed and compared in pairs, as some of them were actually painted as a pair. The variety of their layouts adds the necessary dynamism to the flipping of the book. And with the enlarged postcards I found myself thinking whether it might not be time for a larger scale book in the future. Who knows?

Robert Potokar

IDEA AND CONCEPT
Robert Potokar

The postcards were painted over the last twenty-five years, primarily from 2012 to January 2024 in various Mediterranean locations.
Most of them were sent to friends around the world.

EDITORS
Robert Potokar in Mina Gutović

ACCOMPANYING TEXT
Silvester Plotajs Sicoe

INTRODUCTORY TEXT
Robert Potokar

TEXTS NEXT TO POSTCARDS
Špela Kuhar, Vasja Potokar, Aljoša Potokar et al.

TEXT REVIEW
Špela Kuhar

SLOVENIAN PROOFREADING
Katja Paladin

ENGLISH PROOFREADING
Paul Steed

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Ivan Ilić

PUBLISHER
Robert Potokar s. p.
Ravnikar - Potokar arhitekturni biro d.o.o.
Ustanova Fundacija Piranesi

PRINT ORGANISED BY
Božnar in Partner d.o.o.

COPYRIGHT
Robert Potokar

FORMAT
240 x 240 mm

PAGES
224

COVER
hard

Printed in Slovenia, May 2024