2025 IN REVIEW

 2025 brought a rekindled engagement with ceramics, as I began expanding the Reef Pods series, developing and broadening my “pod” inventory through variations on a theme. While my Gathering series of small, unglazed vessels—plates and bowls—focuses on calligraphic-like marks on the clay surface and exposes the clay’s natural body color, Reef Pods led me to delve more deeply into color and glazes, introducing new variations of marks, textures, and shapes.

 Whereas the Gathering series speaks to ancient worlds, archaeological sites, and nostalgia for the childhood days of my early life in Slavonija, the eastern continental region of Croatia, the Reef Pods series connects me to long summer days on the Adriatic coast and to hours spent swimming and exploring the richness and curiosities of the undersea world. I feel invigorated by this fresh avenue in my work. I see is a deep connection between my paintings and ceramic work, though it is not happening on an intentional or preconceived basis, but rather evolving naturally and organically.

 I often recall advice from my sculpture professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, from which I graduated in 2002. - the late Stjepan Gračan. He emphasized the benefits of switching to a different medium every so often as a form of exercise; pushing oneself out of the routine of repetition and the comfort of familiarity in order to keep ideas fresh. Coincidentally, Gračan himself was a student of my great-uncle, Valerije Michieli, who, too, was a prominent sculptor and professor at the same Academy many years earlier.

 On a more personal note, 2025 was marked by yet another summer trip to Croatia and Slovenia with my family. We visited several major national parks and many beautiful towns along the Adriatic coast, finishing the trip at my favorite location in the Slovenian Alps. We were fortunate to spend time with both my mother and my mother-in-law in Croatia. Looking back, this trip will always carry a bittersweet memory, as baka (grandma) Milica—my husband’s mother—sadly passed away in October, just a couple of months after our visit. I am deeply grateful that she and the children were able to share those moments together.

 

 

Visits to my first homeland are always both beautiful and difficult. Like flipping through an old family album, every scene and every location sparks a vivid memory—at once a bright sensory kaleidoscope of childhood and youth, and a stark reminder of time passed.

All in all, 2025 was another year of creating and exhibiting. I presented my work in two solo exhibitions: Origin: Wondrous Worlds at the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery, Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, IL, and Dream Garden at the Geneva Public Library, Geneva, IL. I also showed new work from my Origin Aqueous series in Perfectly Lost at Walker Fine Art in Denver.

I gave presentations about my work and process at both solo exhibitions and led a student workshop on watercolor and mark-making at Moraine Valley Community College.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a thoughtful, in-depth review of my Origin: Wondrous Worlds solo exhibition, published on Newcity and written by Vera Scekic.

While I don’t hide the fact that the initial sparks for my work come from personal life experiences—childhood memories, a longing for home, a need for grounding, and a sense of being suspended between two places, never quite settled—I rarely think about these themes consciously while I’m creating. Instead, they simply unfold, almost like a visual journal (or perhaps a memoir).

Reading the review felt like a sudden revelation of just how deeply my roots are reflected in the work. I was genuinely moved by Vera’s discerning sensibility and her ability to connect so intimately with the inner life of my art.

 

 

 

Lastly, while my solo exhibition Dream Garden at the Geneva Public Library and Perfectly Lost at Walker Fine Art in Denver remain on view for a couple more weeks, I’m already beginning to look ahead with excitement to what’s next in 2026: a solo exhibition at Olson-Larsen Gallery in Des Moines in February/March, followed by a group exhibition at Walker Fine Art from April through early June.

 Onwards! 

 Review on Newcity Art

"Ana Žanić’s Watercolor and Ceramic Work Speaks to Dislocation"

by Vera Scekic, September 19, 2025

Ana Žanic, installation view of “Origin: Wondrous Worlds,” 2025, at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery, Moraine Valley Community College/Photo: Dan Jarvis and Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery

I am humbled by this wonderful review of my solo exhibition "Origin : Wondorus Worlds" at Robert F. DeCaprio Gallery on Newcity Art, written by Vera Scekic.

Read here.

 

 

 ORIGIN: WONDROUS WORLDS

 

 Solo Exhibition at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery 

 August 12, 2025-September 21, 2025
Reception: Thursday, Aug. 28 | 11 a.m.-1 p.m. 

 

What a wonderful opportunity to show my larger body of work, some works spanning fifteen years in the making ("Gathering" ceramic series), others still very new and fresh even for my eyes ("Reef Pods" ceramic objects and "Origin Aqueous" and ""Suspended" elongated watercolor paintings) at Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery of Moraine Community College. 

The work in this exhibition, like all my work, is autobiographical, gently referencing the places and memories from my life. All of it has a deep personal meaning to me, and connects me, like a journal, to my previous thoughts, reflections and experiences. And of course, what makes me so very happy is when the artwork resonate with others, when there is something to be found, experienced and felt, always anew, and shared with another human being..

Each solo exhibition is in itself like a new art piece; to some extent it is a leap into the unknown. To me it is of the utmost importance to stand behind my work and present it in the best possible way. But there is always that leap of faith, beyond the certainty of any control, and it simply is about believing all the parts of that mechanism of putting up an exhibition will work out and end up being fruitful. 

It is an enormous joy for me to see new faces in the "audience" at each of my openings - young generations of students, and also those who remember being students some forty and fifty years ago, who come to visit the exhibit and open themselves to feeling something - maybe familiar, maybe new, maybe a bit of both?

                            All images in this post courtesy of Dan Jarvis*

Lastly, I would like to mention how grateful I am to Moraine Valley Community College and the gallery coordinator Dan Jarvis, for doing a tremendous work - bringing this exhibition to life - from its installation to documenting. Thank you, Dan!

 IN MY STUDIO

 

 

 Over the years (I dare not say decades out loud!), my studio space went through many changes. 

While I was studying art in Croatia, at the Academy of Fine Arts University of Zagreb, I had a shared studio with a few other students in my class. I was able to work on large oil canvases, but also - made etchings in the printmaking studio, worked with clay in the sculpture space, drew with charcoal in the drawing class....it was great to have a specialized space for each of these mediums, separated from my home. 

Soon after I graduated and moved to the US, no longer having a studio space, I continued my art practice, but now in my small bedroom. I no longer used oil paints and decided to switch to acrylics, as they involved less toxic fumes than oil, and as watercolor was continuously my huge passion, at this time it became more obvious I should pursue it even more. 

Slowly, watercolor as a medium became the main focus of my practice. Especially a few years later, as our family expanded, I very much appreciated watercolor's zero toxicity and focused on using only the non-toxic pigments. And then - when our son Albert was born - becoming a parent, (a mom!) took over EVERYTHING. Most of you parents and especially moms out there will know exactly what I mean... 

Suddenly, my studio practice had vanished completely. After a while, feeling as if I was abstaining from making art, without a choice, I realized - that was not going to work out for me.
I needed to find space and time specifically designated for my work, with no distractions, away from home. That was the start of a several year period when I rented a space in an artist community center. It was not cheap to rent a separate space, as I was not earning much of an income from my art yet, but it was definitely a move in the right direction. 

I remember my husband and I calculating if we could afford it financially at all, and I will never forget my mom (whose sister was a professional painter as well, so she knew!), saying it was imperative to protect my practice and have a professional space for making my work. She was so right!

A few years later, once we settled into the area, knowing we were staying; not moving to a different state, nor returning to Croatia, my husband and I started looking for a house, keeping in mind it needed to have a good studio space for me. I have been making my work in my home studio for the past ten years, and I cherish every moment I spend in it. Not guaranteed there are no distractions, but less than there would be outside my home, for sure.