reviews

	LEO SLIJEPČEVIĆ, Art Historian Introduction "Seasons" Exhibition, Gallery "Kordić", Velika Gorica, 1997.
	Vlasta Pastuović sees what she feels, doesn't rely on the same perception and fine analysis, her eyes are "incandesced", and focused to the inside. In Vlasta's palette there is a major domination of strong red, green and blue shades, which with their radiance turn into the media of the expressing power of the painting, while the movements that spread color on the canvas, constantly accelerate leaving thick layers of paste, and in this way they become one of the factors of that energy which generates a painting that very expressive effect.
	STANKA ŠPOLJARIĆA, Art Historian Introduction, exhibition "LANDSCAPES", "Otvoreno učilište" (Open Institution), Zagreb, 1998.
	From the local shade, that diligently describes the shape, to the transition in the freedom of color outburst, where the color dynamically denotes the scene, Vlasta still remains behind the borders respecting the classical ways. The landscape of Vlasta Pastuović characterizes a kind of discipline, inner order of all segments of the painting but they don't disturb her imagination when she brings excitement into the "regularity", when every painting is a new challenge and that every maybe even familiar landscape seems as new. Layered construction and a hint of the painting atmosphere contribute to the credibility of the painting where a landscape is captured in it's width or being "zoomed" in some of it's fragments. This is not only reality itself, but the reflect of the author's feelings, leading us straight to her emotional ecstasy.
	STANKO ŠPOLJARIĆ, Art Historian Introduction, "Tree in Imaginary Garden", Zagreb, 1999
	In the content of Vlasta's painting there is a culmination of the beauty, beauty that is supported by material and color. Silk and golden lines rise in the new level of existence, where is no place for harshness, roughness, or anxiety. The poetical atmosphere lives in a lyrical connotation of the work. The above mentioned ornamental forms are the part of that personal world. Slightly geometrical shapes (angular or round shapes) border on each other or move freely trough the space, connected with the tangle of lines. Elegance and delicacy of visual arts are expressed in the refined moves that reminds of secession sophistication. Vlasta Pastuović has achieved the right balance between dynamics of the visual art surface and the possible idealized world (where the singing of the birds is the loudest sound that can be heard), balanced visual artistic vitality and stopped time.
	BRANKA ARH, Art Historian review of collage exhibition Gallery "Juraj Klović", Rijeka, 2001.
	The painter's story by Vlasta balances between lyric intimacy and decorative stylization. Tree crown shaped world, combining leaves, birds, trees, like luxurious corsage, everything is shiny, joyful, ductile in the vibrant moment, everything is growing, expanding, pulsing in the shades of the color, in a colorful excitement. The imaginary becomes the scale of her world. She combines, shapes, matches and draws until she achieves the wanted effect, until she finally creates her own ranking of artistic values: space that can be measured by the criteria of the soul, the one that can host the objects from fantasy and dream, the one that can explore the possibilities, spell the relationships, proportions and sizes, where the reality remains just a starting point of the dreamed and sensed world, the being of the unreality. Attracts attention with the transformation of proposed motives. Uses fluid materials and linear interpretation of specific observation. The colors spread and get absorbed on the soft, sleek ground made of silk which is cut into pieces and attached on the hand made paper with rougher surface texture. In the new situation of flat relations communication with the base is wanted, the space which cannot be framed into the net of the perspective, has been layered. Strict lines as an integral part of the painting, like a border of stain glass window twists the stylistic formed lines of the plants, outlines the space borders, collect, aligns, and fastens to the base and keeps it all together, points out the separate chapters and exclusive details, limits the growth and expansion, puts in order, takes and transforms the segments of one endless painting which follows enthusiasm, joy and honesty of creating. With black or gold lines she outlines the space, describes the form, fills up the composition on the whole surface of the painting. In that mutual speech and tense intercourse of lines and color, in the rhythmical opening and closing the space, in the controlled and a bit stiffed motion of these form factors shows the meaning and the sense of such artistic attitude and system. Flat shapes of the painted silk (consisting part of collages), which are divided into stylistic organized groups shape an unit according to the autonomic painting settings od adding, overflowing, summarizing and multiplying. The part carries the whole unit, lives with each of his elemental parts. Somewhere something disappears, so that it could appear again in the new level of observation. At that moment it gains a new dimension on the level of personal poetry in form of an ornament and decoration. The Vlasta's actuating power lies in the idea. In the unit of collage compositions she enhances her own interpretational style, in the unconventional and casual way, the one that allows sincerity in form and in color, the freedom, and the one that conducts the painting control and discipline.
	MLADEN MITAR, Art Historian Introduction to the exhibition "Svilk nature", Zagreb, 2005
	The collage technique can be considered as traditional. It was founded in cubism, and in 1914. it was taken over by Italian futurists. Enrico Prampolini, Carlo Cara's student, had enriched the catalogue of materials adding the collage technique, introducing fabrics and chemical materials, while "Dada" offered an assortment of photos and postcards. Collage indeed is patched from various materials that highlight the differences between hard and soft, mono- and multi dimensional, transparent and dense characteristics. Vlasta Pastuović Aleksić has courage to create in this technique that exists almost for one century. For the painter the life has sense, which proposes artistic creation. That sensation with the power of own enthusiasm cerates spiritual shapes. Vlasta tries to reconstruct the world that exists in reality into the new nature named painting. The painting means expression of her inner soul observations. Vlasta avoids mimesis aiming to achieve more color expression and to enable fantasy and imagination. Her collages are celebration in honor to flora. She cuts out the painted silk shapes, and then patches them on the hand made paper f different color and texture, which is tightly fastened. Animated and attractive flower shapes rhythmically occur in horizontal line, with stylized golden lines as bordures to the colored areas as an opposite to the softer background. Dynamics and golden bordures evoke the atmosphere of decorative secession. Crowns, flowers, leaves, stalks, everything serves to decoration, with in some moments becomes an aim to itself. Harmony of color and shapes turn into the main visual object of her compositions. That object is actually the media that connects our attention to the shapes, that invite us to fathom them and to discover their spirit. Thematical content has a variety of ornamental decorative shapes. Fusion on planar and linear dimension occurs in an interesting way during this opus. Drawing stylizations of luxurious flowers remind of the visual art of knitted works. Vlasta builds the fantasy and unreal lyrical world of crowns and flowers, which pulse in their shapes and colors expressing the joyful moments of existence. There is something festal and celebrating in those picturesque crowns, memories of those times, when the scent of flowers were different and more beautiful, and when the nature protectors wouldn't complain because you picked a flower in a forest. Vlasta gave to us this exhibition like one big intimate bouquet of her feelings to understand the usable value of non-usable. Long ago, as the first man gave the first flower to a woman, he actually rised beyond his basic instinct and brought the meaning of beauty to his senses. Since that times the meaning of beauty became immanent to the human being.
	MLADEN MITAR, Art Historian Introduction, retrospective exhibition "Garden of Eden", Gallery "Ulrich", Zagreb, 2005
	Jean Starobinski once said that Proust had been neither first nor last one who had noticed the "disharmony" between the things that can be seen and the possibility of expressing it in words. Corot's sentence expresses in a impressive and simple way the feeling of inability of a writer and the painter: »When I am in the nature, I am angry at my canvas.« Vlasta Pastuović Aleksić has no reason to say so, because she isn't stressed by mimesis. The nature serves to her just as a sample, where from she builds her personal visual artistic interpretation. Delighted with sensual pleasures of the world appearance, she transforms the experience of the nature trough the strong immediate blurred strokes into the rich coloristic arabesque. On her paintings landscapes are artistically impressed. In the morphology of visual arts dominates a harmony of Na monodimensional concept. Her visual artistic intuition creates at the moment when the visions get captured in the net of the spirit. In one breath she creates compositions, so that her paintings radiate with the freshness of artistic performance. Spring is the most inspiring season. Universal blossom and expansion of the shapes are a constant occupation of her attention. Sketching and stylization fit properly into the casualness of the artistic manifest by itself. Compositional horizontal becomes more often, but it hasn't reached its limits yet. Coloristic observation has been settled to a green, blue yellow and violet color with moderate and sufficient dose of red. The strokes point on a recognizable strong expressive gesture that distinguishes many ways of spreading the paint, from glazed to saturated thick layers. Almost in all compositions, observation of the landscapes comes from the elevated point and afterwards keeps slowly descending, the pictures are overlapping starting from the most distant one; from the green shades of the fields to the remains of the blue sky-lines. Comparing the painted composition with experienced vision, we could say that those are the landscapes of the painter's soul in the first place, that were made as one new piece of nature with independent existence. In this exhibition on the theme of landscapes still life plays also one small role. It is interesting to notice some compositions, where the painter enters in micro- parts of the tree crowns, leaving the thematic context behind. This action highlights the artistical matter, moving off the description of the details, avoiding layouts. In this way the rhythm, graphic, and coloratura get the same treatment. Vlasta's hedonistic comprehension of nature goes trough the painter condensation. The main assignment to Vlasta is to know how to greet the beauty. It is surprising how strongly climate was absorbed into her painting of landscapes and how it had defined her painter's temper. It takes a great courage to paint a landscape today, considering the promotion of this theme trough the history of arts. Vlasta Pastuović isn't strained by modern ways of expression, believing that she can find sparkles of creativity in the traditional ways of expression. True honest painting of the landscapes justifies the achievements of her style. »No to be blindfolded in front of the beauty of the world means at the same time a rebellion against evil and the beginning of learning, first degree of non equanimity towards the pain of one's neighbour.« (J. Starobinski)