2017 COLLECTION: HOPE

HOPE is a charcoal series developed at a formative moment in María Verónica Arís Zlatar’s practice, when drawing consolidates itself as a central mode of inquiry. Created during a period of migration, the works do not address displacement as a political or narrative subject, but as a lived condition that subtly reorganizes perception, orientation, and daily attention.

Charcoal allows for direct contact between gesture and surface. The drawings preserve traces of correction, pressure, and hesitation, maintaining a sense of openness rather than resolution. Figures and spaces appear in states of adjustment, reflecting a perceptual intelligence shaped by the everyday experience of inhabiting an unfamiliar environment. Meaning emerges through looking, not through explanation.

Within the artist’s broader trajectory, HOPE marks a decisive shift toward experience-based work. While Das Atelier von Minerva engages philosophical questions through drawing, HOPE moves closer to lived perception itself, establishing an approach that later expands into more complex registers. This series forms an essential link between early conceptual investigations and the embodied, transformational works developed in subsequent collections.

Seen from today’s perspective, HOPE holds a particular position within the oeuvre: intimate, restrained, and grounded in daily life. It precedes the identity reconfiguration explored in Postpartum Collection (2023) and the symbolic, spiritual dimension of the Hécates, offering instead a quieter but structurally important body of work. Its strength lies in its discretion and in the precision with which it records a perceptual shift rather than an event.

Several works from HOPE are currently held in Basel. Private acquisitions and placement discussions may be facilitated locally.

Opportunity as a blessing
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm
Brussels, Belgium

Fearless

2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

Between absence and presence
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

Insistence on persistence
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

The unspeakable mourning
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

Awareness of details
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

Time for self-uncovering
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

The intimacy of our behind
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54cm.
Brussels, Belgium

Nevertheless, sameness
2017 Collection: Hope
Verónica Arís Zlatar
Charcoal on Fabriano paper, 38x54 cm.
Brussels, Belgium