Art books or graphic sculptures The prolific creative opus of Maja S. Franković is diverse and not linked to only one artistic medium. The author belongs to a small number of artists who are not in thrall to one artistic expression; she experiments, probes and strives to link several media such as graphics, collage and painting. With such a wide palette, the painter forges a channel which will serve her and spur her on unimaginable heights of artistic expression, where her boundless energy overwhelmes all mysteries of graphic techniques and skills. In that artistic creation, what is clearly manifested is her love of graphic art, and the mystique which is shrouded in the nascent staage of the creative process, in that metamorphosis which begins with a hand- left trace on the graphic matrix up to layering of colour and use of various chemical processes. All of these are assumptions which surface precisely prior to the act of impression itself and under the weight of the printing roller unexpected and, above all, strange shapes or figures that seem to have been hatched from cocooned larvae from which nobody in his wildest dreams could have imagined their transmutation into majestic creatures- butterflies- with gossamer wings, wheeling, swirling, soaring, flapping and fluttering their delicate wings, leave us spellbound.  Opening her art books, we follow the story warm and tender, happily sharing it with those we love or perhaps indulging in daydreaming in moments of solitude, we wonder and waver which of them has left its deepest imprint. Working with many writers, Maja S. Franković has woven their words into an artistic furrow with colours which are mutually consonant, fusing them to create rich resonant tones. In her art books, thee verbal and artistic are happily and consummately interwoven. The word becomes a symbol which will serve to express the artistic; the meaning of the word, however does not evaporate and the message remains. The author's red „Rozalinda“ spins out in a graphic illustration ove ran equally red basee, where traces of white punctuate the scene creating a dynamic impression. It is precisely that balance of colours and their interaction with each other, the rhythm prevailing over the entire composition, wich overflows into a tridimensional form of a new medium. Her graphics are reality in themselves; they are simultaneously monodimensional and spatial. Their mobility lends a special architecture which is constructed with diverse overlapping. Maja S. Franković's art books are precisely constructed on a volume shape with graphics serving to express the role of volume as an integral, but not indispensable, - in reality, dominant part which, in this role, determines and defines, divesting it of the original meaning of books as exclusive forms of presenting literary work. The artist first of all forges her own art books through the gift of virtuosity in drawing, skilled ductility and artistic print, more often on a stone base from where metaphorical symbols imprinted on a white surface are liberated, where lines and colours serve equal roles; lines traversing the whole gamut- from sensitivity  and lyrical to formidable and forceful in a synesthesia with colour revealed in chromatic differentiated formulae, leaving the impression of a particular or distinctive expression, eschewing in the process solid or firm contours between them. With consummate exploitation and shading of black, i.e. in fact, her relationship vis-a- vis white, the author manages to achieve an overwhelmingly strong impression and dramatic quality. Her pictorial and graphic syntax is semiotically challenged by symbols and their potential variations, whereby new meanings, new symbols and metaphors of artistic expression are revealed. In a rhythmical rhapsody of a tridimensional media, the semantics of a female artist's statement are interpreted and given recognition in an area of diverse meanings, intensifying the symbols of the genuine beauty of her artistic achievements. Mikica Meštrović       Maja S. Frankovic was born in Rijeka in 1951. She graduated in 1984 from the Art Department at the Faculty of Education in Printing and Medieval Art History. She took her Master's degree in printing from the Ljubljana Art Academy in 1989. For the purpose of professional improvement, she has visited a great number of European as well as American cities, and from 1970 to 1971 she has frequented The Camden Arts Centre in London. Since 1971, she has been exhibiting her works in numerous group as well as solo exhibitions in Europe, and all around the globe. She has received many awards and other avowals for her work. In 1991, she has begun her regular annual visitations to Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris. She is currently working on her multiannual cycle of book- objects, and experimenting with object collage on her graphics. She has been organizing  summer lithography workshops in the medieval town of Brseč since 1999. In the year 2002 she has been promoted to a full time professor in the University of Rijeka, in the city where she lives and works. She has been residing in Paris since 2005 as a diplomat for the Permanent Delegation of Croatia to UNESCO.