About the Artist
Gordana Šoštarić was born in Zagreb, where she completed primary and secondary music school before graduating in violin from the Academy of Music in Zagreb. Her professional path led her to the orchestra of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, of which she is a permanent member and where the violin has for many years been an integral part of her artistic and professional life.
Although music had been at the center of her education and career from her earliest years, Gordana had always felt a strong need to express herself through other artistic media as well. Painting, musical motifs, jewelry design, wirework, and the creation of concert posters gradually became another space for her creativity. She made jewelry from crocheted wire, worked with a variety of materials, and explored ways in which a musical sensibility could be translated into visual expression.
Alongside her professional work as a violinist, she began painting old violins and other musical instruments. The idea grew out of a need for a creative space free from the strict rules that characterize the life of a professional musician. After years spent with musical scores, precisely defined structures, rhythm, and the discipline of the orchestra, painting instruments became for her a realm of complete artistic freedom.
The violin thus ceased to be merely a source of sound and became an object whose lines, form, and surface could carry a new kind of artistic story.
At the heart of Gordana’s work are mainly instruments that have reached the end of their musical lives—damaged violins no longer worth repairing, instruments that had stood forgotten for years in attics and basements, or instruments that had simply been withdrawn from use. Rather than allowing their stories to end there, she gives them a second life through color, texture, and new motifs.
She regards each instrument as an individual personality. The creative process does not always begin immediately. Some instruments may remain for weeks in her workspace until an idea emerges that suits them. Gordana describes her creative process almost as a dialogue between the artist and the object: the motif develops gradually, and the final result is often not fully determined in advance.
She most often works with acrylic paints and contour liners, but her expression is not limited to painting alone. In some works, she uses pieces of cut glass, small mirrors, wire, and other decorative elements that give the instrument a new texture and a new way of interacting with light.
One of the most important sources of inspiration for her work is the sea. Long walks along the coast, the scent of the sea, the intensity of the blue sky, and the colors of summer often serve as starting points for her motifs. At the same time, she is drawn to abstraction, which means that each new instrument can become a space for an entirely different visual exploration.
Although violins are the most recognizable part of her work, over the years she has also painted guitars, cellos, bows, ukuleles, and even the body of a double bass. The creative process sometimes extends beyond the instrument itself: from silver wire, for example, she created a collection of angels that also became part of her exhibition program.
A special place among her works belongs to a miniature violin called “Mala Lujza” (“Little Louise”), given to her by a colleague from the orchestra. It was on this very violin that her colleague as a child learned her first études, so in addition to its new artistic form, the instrument also carries the personal history of its previous life.
Over the years, Gordana has presented her painted instruments at various exhibitions. Earlier presentations included Zaprešić and Mali Lošinj, while in 2020 the Oblok Gallery in Sesvete hosted the exhibition “Rhythm of Joy – Painted Instruments.” Alongside numerous violins, the exhibition featured bows, cellos, guitars, ukuleles, and a painted double-bass body, presenting the public with a broader range of her creative work.
An important stage in her artistic journey was the exhibition “Colors of Summer,” held in 2022 at the Museum of the City of Trogir. There she presented fantastically painted musical instruments through which the fundamental idea of her work is clearly expressed—the interweaving of music and painting, sound and color, the professional experience of a violinist and the freedom of a visual artist.
Her work has also developed through collaborations with other musicians and institutions. In collaboration with the Blagoje Bersa Music School in Zagreb and violin teacher Lara Silvestri Valdevit, an exhibition was created for which school instruments that had been withdrawn from use were donated to Gordana, after which she transformed them through painting into new works of art.
In January 2026, she also presented her work at the Sesvete Cultural Center. The exhibition brought together some of her most striking works and at the same time represented a kind of affirmation of the artistic direction she had been developing over the preceding years. For Gordana, it also held special significance as the result of collaboration with people who had understood and supported her vision from the very beginning, including Jasmina Sikimić Cossetto and photographer Marko Lorenzo Blaslov.
Gordana’s artistic journey
In Gordana’s work, music and visual art do not exist as two separate disciplines. They complement one another naturally. The movement of the bow becomes a brushstroke, rhythm becomes a visual composition, and an instrument that once produced sound becomes a bearer of color, texture, and new life.
It is precisely in this that the distinctiveness of her work lies. Every instrument that comes into her hands already has a history of its own—from the maker who crafted it, through the musician who played it, to the moment when its musical life came to an end. Gordana Šoštarić does not attempt to erase the traces of that history, but instead adds a new chapter to it. The instrument may no longer play, but its story continues to live anew through art.
To view Gordana's current display of instruments, click the button below.
GalleryContact
Get in touch
If my work inspires you, you would like to purchase one of my pieces, or you are interested in a collaboration, please get in touch using one of the following methods:
Email:goga.hnk@gmail.comPhone:+385 91 537 7773InstagramFacebook