This year’s Foo Foo Fest brings a rare opportunity to experience the work of internationally acclaimed visual artist Relja Penezic, whose exhibition Wandering Without Purpose will be on view throughout the festival at Pensacola State College’s Charles W. Lamar Studio in the Anna Lamar Switzer Center for Visual Arts.
The title, borrowed from Austrian-English philosopher Karl Popper’s characterization of Zen philosophy, reflects both Penezic’s life and artistic practice. His work resists confinement to a single form or idea, instead moving fluidly between realism and abstraction, stillness and motion, sound and silence.
The exhibition is designed with striking simplicity. Thirty to forty of Penezic’s oil paintings on wood panels will line the gallery walls—each hung at the same height and with equal spacing—inviting the eye to follow them as though they were part of one continuous narrative. In the center of the gallery, two video works will be projected on freestanding walls. Like the paintings, they are meant to be experienced without beginning or end, their imagery unfolding like visual meditations.
Layered into the visual experience is an interactive sound installation by Penezic’s wife, Victoria Jordanova, a celebrated composer and performer whose career spans performances at venues like Lincoln Center. For this installation, Jordanova has created what she calls Whispers: a soundscape of overlapping, mostly unintelligible voices. Visitors are invited to add their own whispers into a microphone, their words folded into the composition in real time. The result is a constantly evolving collaboration between artist and audience—a reminder that art is not only observed but also shared.
“It’s an opportunity to see someone who has more of a worldwide reputation,” says Debbie Douma, Dean of Grants and Federal Programs at Pensacola State College. “His work is so realistic that when I first saw it, I thought they were photographs. And then to have Victoria’s sound installation alongside—it creates this immersive, elevated experience that we couldn’t do without Foo Foo Fest.”
Penezic and Jordanova, both originally from Yugoslavia, have exhibited and performed across the world. Their arrival in Pensacola underscores Foo Foo Fest’s mission of bringing world-class art experiences to the Gulf Coast, while also drawing attention to Pensacola State College’s impressive artistic legacy. The college’s own permanent collection holds more than 400 works.
The exhibition will remain open throughout Foo Foo Fest, offering festivalgoers a chance not only to encounter Penezic’s newest work but also to wander through the college’s remarkable collection. On Tuesday, November 4 at 5:30 p.m., Penezic will deliver an artist lecture and gallery walkthrough, a free event open to the public.