Drawing from both pornographic and religious imagery, each of Hafizovic’s paintings in the current exhibition is an imagined reality: In one piece, masturbating figures are placed in Babylonian gardens; In The Story of an Eye sensual women lie gracefully in muddy purgatory-like landscapes. However, Hafizovic renders each of these figures and their environments objectively, restraining an immediate interpretation.

Like filmmakers relationship to the medium of film, Hafizovic is drawn to the ways in which the medium of painting is a vehicle for driving a story. Her abstracted figures cropped into unrecognizable detail and placed into decaying backgrounds reveal the unexpected and erotic quality of the unknown. Short brush strokes connected at harsh angles mechanically and intentionally shift the narrative pushing each piece to its conclusion. Hafizovic seemingly develops a new vocabulary through a layering of different styles and references while treating each neutrally.