The IUS Art Gallery opened the exhibition Metamorphoses by Ira Skopljak-Viteškić on May 7, 2026, offering visitors an opportunity to enter a visually rich and thought-provoking artistic world shaped by transformation, symbolism, and layered interpretation. The opening brought together guests, art enthusiasts, and members of the IUS community for an evening dedicated to contemporary artistic expression and reflection.
The exhibition was curated by Prof. Dr. Meliha Teparić, who introduced the artist and welcomed visitors at the opening ceremony. Following the curator’s remarks, Asst. Prof. Dr. Nadira Puškar Mustafić delivered the opening speech and presented a review of the exhibition, offering deeper insight into the conceptual and visual language of the works on display. The artist then greeted the audience and thanked them for attending. The exhibition remained open to visitors until May 31, 2026.
Born in Sarajevo, Ira Skopljak-Viteškić completed the School of Applied Arts in Sarajevo in the Department of Textile Design and later graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, Department of Art Education. She currently works as a senior teaching assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts, where her professional focus is closely linked to art technology, painting technology, wall painting, conservation, paper conservation, and the study of materials and artistic techniques. Her academic and artistic background is especially visible in the exhibition’s textured, materially rich surfaces and carefully layered visual compositions.
As highlighted in the exhibition review by Asst. Prof. Dr. Nadira Puškar Mustafić, the title Metamorphoses serves as a meaningful entry point into the artist’s visual world. Transformation here is not presented as a simple change, but as a movement between forms, identities, and symbolic meanings. Figures, faces, animals, landscapes, and ornamental elements appear in states of transition, suggesting that nothing in these paintings is entirely fixed or final.
One of the most striking qualities of the exhibition is its openness to interpretation. The works do not impose a single meaning; instead, they invite viewers to pause, observe, and enter a space shaped by ambiguity, imagination, and emotional resonance. Ceremonial figures, faceless or eyeless bodies, symbolic animals, decorative patterns, and theatrical surfaces together create a world that seems suspended between memory, ritual, dream, and storytelling. In this way, the paintings go beyond representation and become visual narratives that unfold differently with each viewing.
Skopljak-Viteškić’s artistic language may be described as contemporary mixed-media painting marked by expressive color, ornament, and theatricality. Her works reshape and exaggerate recognizable forms, while also echoing older visual traditions through ceremonial clothing, symbolic masks, decorative excess, and richly textured surfaces. These layers do not function merely as decoration; they become carriers of meaning, suggesting memory, time, and the traces left behind through transformation.
The exhibition also invites a literary mode of reading. Rather than functioning as straightforward images, the paintings operate like fragments of stories or visual poems. Landscapes become emotional spaces, animals become symbols or witnesses, and colors themselves begin to speak. As the review beautifully concludes, the central impression of the exhibition can be captured in one powerful idea: form is not a boundary, but a passage.
Through Metamorphoses, the IUS Art Gallery once again affirmed its role as a vibrant space for contemporary artistic dialogue and cultural engagement. By hosting exhibitions that encourage reflection, interpretation, and interdisciplinary appreciation, the Gallery continues to enrich the cultural life of the University and the wider community.
