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Antonia Rusković Radonić presented herself to the public and had her first exhibition in Sponza palace 25 years ago.
The Dubrovnik public is familiar with her work and efforts in preserving tradition and in every way protecting the cultural heritage of Konavle.
In recent years, she has worked devotedly as the director of the Konavle Museum and Gallery, leaving a truly great mark that has been presented to us through a series of exhibitions, events, books, publications..
With her team, she awakened and interested the community.
In addition to her enormous and demanding work, she also painted. Antonia created and with her strong strokes created that beautiful world of hers, a landscape that is changing or has changed, her Konavle and Konavle people.. Both with desire and with her brush, she stopped that eternal beauty. With a color scheme from which colors burst, she created her paintings.
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Twenty-five years have passed since the first presentation of Antonia Rusković Radonić's artistic creations in Sponza Palace, and now comes the opportunity to once again immerse ourselves in the beauty of her landscapes, primarily Konavle.
Her Konavle is different. Potent and strong. Like her upright cypresses, Antonia strides strongly.
With a strong brushstroke and clear color, she brings landscapes of almost unreal beauty of what is before us, which we sometimes do not notice. With her whole being, Antonia lives her culture, respecting nature, which returns that energy to her. From each of her paintings, the strong Konavle spirit springs forth in its fullness.
From the whiteness of the old Konavle's facades to the weight of the red soil, she bears witness to the strength of her region and seems to archaically mourn for the cultivated docks, vineyards... Her nostalgia is not a longing for bygone times, but sees in it an opportunity for tomorrow.
Her cypresses defy both the wind from the upper bank and the sea from the lower. And although strong, she is fragile and lovely on the inside.
It was difficult to survive in painting all these years while she gave us beautiful exhibitions of the Konavle Museum, while she tried to preserve and collect her heritage so that it would remain for generations to come. The works are here.
Books and other records of the past remain, of customs as signposts and foundations for tomorrow from which she shows this life and gift in her paintings.
The Konavle being is special in all segments of its fabric. Its desires and interests are sometimes almost unreal.
From the upper to the lower gang, everything is there. As it used to be. Alive. Few of the young world will understand its world, but they will not remain indifferent in the sense of the soul.
Beauty is in the heather, the berry, the blue sea, the vines and the cultivated land because the Konavle fields are almost nowhere to be found. The bushes and the grasslands ache where there used to be a song, young and old. Where there was life.
Antonia lives the present while respecting the past. She lives life in her paintings, but in her heart she carries a longing for the time she grew up in.
She dedicates the exhibition For You to her origins, her grandmother Konavoka.
