Refusés

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

Refusés is pleased to present I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead, a group show presenting Andrea Popović, Giulio Gamba and Lucia Martinez Garcia. A reference to Sylvia Plath’s poem ‘Mad Girl’s Love Song’, this exhibition suggests the arts provide a space to take profoundly inner experiences into the public forum, allowing individuals to share, reflect on, and process private realities within a communal, safe space. As part of Refusés’ inaugural programming, each exhibition offers one answer to the cardinal question of what is the purpose of art? The first exhibition explored art as community building. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead, aligns itself with Aristotle’s Poetics, which argues that art serves as catharsis, a vehicle for an emotional response from the viewer which allows us to learn more about human nature. Through painting, writing and video, this exhibition illustrates how private emotions and personal narratives shared publicly in the form of art, can transition from being confined to the artist’s subjective experience and become part of a broader dialogue.

The portraiture began as a way to share time with people, a moment of dialogue. A room holds no inherent value at first; it can feel intimidating. On the first night in a new apartment, it’s hard to imagine ever feeling attached to the space, yet over time, a connection inevitably forms. As life flows through the walls, and the space becomes filled with shared thoughts and energy, it starts to take on a different shape. A certain energy lingers.

There’s an urgency to leave an imprint on paper, an almost frantic need to capture a moment. Time often feels scarce, a recurring theme over the past decade. There’s a sense that time is limited, even as it continually stretches forward. An urgency to witness what lies ahead remains constant. The paint needs to dry quickly, the image must come through. Yet, despite all efforts, limitations persist.

The friendships passing through this studio leave traces of these intertwined lives, enriching each other’s existence. They reveal each day how vital it is to create space for things to evolve and take shape.

Show text by Juliette

Andrea Popović’s gripping portraits transform private moments into shared experiences, inviting the viewer to engage with the intimacy of his encounters. His close-cropped paintings, rendered in a quick and gestural style, feel like windows into his studio—a space where the sitters reveal themselves not only to the artist but also to the audience. Painting his friends, family and partner, the artist leans on these portraits as a way to literally slow down time and study his relationships with the person in front of him. By bringing these personal exchanges into the public realm, Popović’s work creates a communal space for reflection, where even something as personal as a portrait of a loved one becomes open to interpretation. The painter’s use of a traditional medium imbues permanence into fleeting encounters, yet his stylized approach makes these moments feel both deeply specific and universally accessible. As a result, each portrait exists in a liminal space, where it is simultaneously private and public, individual yet relatable, inviting viewers to project their own narratives and emotions onto the work. The safety of his studio as the connecting thread, each individual painting invites open communal reflection.