The third solo exhibition of Vanja Vulin Ivošević was opened in the Pavana Gallery, Belgrade. Her artistic work has been accompanied from the very beginning by Biljana Jotic, who also wrote the cataloque article and opened an exhibition…
If we went into the meaning of the term touch, more associations would appear, and each implies an individual feeling, thought, experience or assumption. From this moment, Vanja’s need for conceptual shaping of the current phase of the artistic personality also emerges. Awakened through a cycle of paintings and drawings called Moved spaces, continuing through an invitation to dance together in the cycle of paintings Dance with Me, she merges in touch. In the process of searching, there is practically a need to meet oneself, when one stops and looks back, looks at the present so that one can continue further. With the exhibition Touch, the artist subtly connects the connotations of the process of liberation, but also the knowledge of belonging. Out of the precision of the architect, Vanja entered the subtlety of the artist and can now continue. The specificity of her artistic expression can be found precisely in the combination of these two worlds and sensibilities.
… It is a long way from the beginning to the end, from idea to realization. Painting is a process of crossing that path and it only depends on the individual how he will shape it. When thoughts and emotions are triggered, it is difficult to know and say where they will take themselves, and the simplicity is complete. Visible reduction of spatial definiteness and forms, invisible width of strokes of the combination of ink and acrylic, immediacy of encounter with paper, light effects of color before some coloristic layers, reduced relationships within geometrically divided newly created images draw into the world behind, the conceptual background of artistic sensibility… – excerpt from the text on Initiated Spaces.
… Analyzing the elements of fine art and the ways in which Vanja solves the space of the painting, thus communicating with the observer, the notion of transcendental aesthetics is imposed. In the cycle of paintings created under the name Dance with Me, the unobtrusive pace of entering the space of paper or canvas continues, with the boundary between the material and the debt being barely discernible. According to these characteristics, it connects the senses of sight and hearing, harmonise of colors within the image we see and musical symphonies we hear. In these close relationships, we can recognize the primary delight of the game with borderline feelings that lead to the field of disappearing borders, the field of pure pleasure. By exhibiting her paintings in a public gallery space, she shares her feelings with everyone and invites the observer to join her in the field of chamber atmosphere… – an excerpt from the text Dance with me.
What it is that touches Vanja and what it tends to touch the observer, we can conclude if we look at the names of the images that make up the setting. Challenge, Beauty, A year in the life, Temptation, New dawn, Entrance, Anniversary, Let’s play, Desire and Jump came from life, from personal. Passing through various forms of emotions and thoughts, the fields of tactile communication were reduced and pure, transformed into art. Only in this mutual contact can the meaning of the existence of art and the need for it be found. Although in modern theoretical practices the notion of the aesthetic problematizes value, deals with discourses, criticizes the examination of the valuable, she remains in the domain of enjoyment as an aesthetic category and invites touch in the field of safe feeling of artistic sensibility and beauty. It is up to the observer to experience his relationship to the notion of touch and that is where the new story begins.
Biljana Jotić, art historian and curator
