Highlights from the ANU Art Collection: Tim Bučković

Tim Bučković, Lengthening 2019

In Lengthening, Tim Bučković constructs a dreamlike scene of physical and ritual activity, viewed through a narrow metaphorical portal. Faceless figures emerge and dissolve amid fragmented landscapes of water, oil, grass, and hay, their fluid forms rising like smoke. The painting invites reflection on transformation, transcendence, and the porous boundary between the material and immaterial worlds.

Bučković’s synthesis of abstracted form and emotional intensity reinterprets the mystical currents of early modernism for a contemporary context. Like his Symbolist forebears, he seeks to access the unconscious through painterly experimentation, expressing the dark, irrational, numinous dimensions of experience. In doing so, he aligns with a broader movement among younger artists, including Victoria Stolz (also represented in this exhibition), who turn inward in response to the accelerated, technologised pace of contemporary life.

Bučković’s work echoes a Symbolist preoccupation with mortality and meaning, finding renewed resonance amid today’s political, environmental, and existential uncertainty.

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On show in ANU Art Collection: Conjunction, 24 October – 21 December 2025