Croatia’s vibrant photography scene is home to a new generation of artists who blend tradition, personal expression, and innovation. From intimate portraits to evocative landscapes, these photographers each bring their own unique perspective to the art form, pushing boundaries and telling captivating stories through their lenses.
Mara Bratoš
For nearly three decades, Mara Bratoš has been a prominent figure in Croatian photography. Her work reveals the deep significance of her relationships with cherished people and places, from her hometown of Dubrovnik to her bond with her daughter. In her photography, there's often an emotional undercurrent—an unspoken connection between her physical presence and the nature or society surrounding her. You can currently see her exhibition at Klovićevi Dvori until November 17th, showcasing a retrospective of her work, highlighting her as an artist capturing reality with a melancholic, meditative, and poetic lens, spanning from the 1990s to today.
Leona Paraminski, U sobi, 2003., photo by Mara Bratoš
Petra Slobodnjak
Unique, authentic, gentle, strong — Petra Slobodnjak is a photographer whose work speaks volumes. With numerous awards and scholarships to her name, she is the official photographer for the Croatian national folk dance ensemble, LADO. Petra’s photos tell stories, filled with emotion, irony, everyday moments, illusions, questioning, and playfulness—in one word, life. Her work creates dialogue and inspires reflection. For her project *Planinska 7* (read more here: Planinska 7 Project,) capturing everyday life in her Zagreb apartment building, she received the Ivan Kožarić Award for Young Artists in 2022. The project is now a permanent part of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. Don’t miss a glimpse of her LADO ensemble photography in one of our guides: [Croatia In Your Pocket Winter 2023]
Planinska 7 Project, Photo by Petra Slobodnjak
Jelena Janković
As you read this, Jelena Janković is preparing to open her exhibition *8th Floor*, running from October 24th to November 20th at the Richter Collection, Vrhovec 38. Over the past eight years, she has captured the transformation of the same architectural view almost daily, documenting shifts in light, weather, and seasons. This photographic cycle is accompanied by intimate, poetic writings drawn from her personal experience. Through her work, she delves into human nature and the psychological dimensions of relationships across various genres—documentary, theatre, fashion, portraiture, and experimental photography—using diverse techniques and media. "Photography isn’t just a job for me; it’s life. Being dyslexic, which I discovered two years ago, photography is my only form of expression where I don’t have to hide. This undiagnosed dyslexia caused many issues in my childhood, education, and communication with the world. That’s why photography feels truly intimate and special to me.”
Jelena Janković
Ivan Buvinić
Until November 3rd, you can visit Ivan Buvinić’s exhibition *ID_75* at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, part of the Organ Vida International Photography Festival. *ID_75* refers to Ivo Družić Street 75, where Ivan lived from birth before moving out. The project distils experiences shaped by that space, as well as moments of escape from it. In 2022, Ivan graduated in photography from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. He became a member of the European photography platform *Futures Photography* and, in 2023, won the Marina Viculin Award for exceptional achievements in contemporary photography in Croatia. Learn more about Ivan at [buvinicivan.com]
Ivan Buvinić
Lorna Kijurko
Ljubljana-born, Rovinj-raised photographer Lorna Kijurko has been turning a lot of heads with her fresh take on the art of the nude. Working primarily in black and white, she has carved out a unique aesthetic niche since her first solo exhibition “Liveliness” in 2016. The Živost series has since assumed canonical proportions with its intimate, atmospheric and empowering images of female nudes – lying on beaches, running between tall wild grasses, or caught in almost candid-camera style in various locations. Revised and expanded, Živost was given a reprise in Zagreb’s Lauba Gallery in 2020; and all of a sudden Lorna Kijurko was someone the nation’s lifestyle magazines couldn’t get enough of. As she told one interviewer, “for me the nude is not about taking clothes off, its about opening the soul”. Increasingly in demand as a portrait and fashion photographer, and with an already much-hailed portfolio of travel photographs taken during trips to India, one suspects that there is much more to come from Kijurko in the future.
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