At midday, as the sun gathers shadows close to the body, the distance between morning and what remains ahead exists in equal measure. It is a moment of recollection and promise. Arriving in Canada in 1993, Toronto-based Bosnian artist Sadko Hadžihasanović has now spent half of his life here, and half in the former Yugoslavia. The water’s edge, here at noon presents recent paintings that emerge from that midpoint, reflecting on memory and calm moments removed from the stresses of the wider world. 

Hadžihasanović’s scenes refuse to fix themselves in one location. They may suggest the Una River in his hometown of Bihać, or nearby Ontario shorelines, but they are all tied to Arcadia: a poetic landscape, which offers a pause from the pressures of contemporary life. Collectively these waterways mark a gradual shift from earlier paintings that confronted the instability and violence surrounding the breakup of Yugoslavia.  

For more than a decade, Hadžihasanović has painted on copper. Works on reused drypoint plates bring his printmaking and painting practices into close conversation, and reference a centuries-long tradition of painters using copper supports. Other works are made on copper vessels, recalling Sarajevo, where the artist studied and where copperwork traditions shape the city’s cultural identity. 

Artwork courtesy of the artist and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto. Exhibition documentation by LF Documentation.