Artist Statement

My art is characterized by the expression of emotions. Whether I am photographing or painting, it is important for me to convey the feeling I have and that I would like others to see and experience through my work.

Nature is my great inspiration. I constantly strive to stay connected with it. A motif from nature always finds its way into my painting. Sometimes this happens consciously, and sometimes the painting process itself leads me back to the starting point from which everything begins. Through the combination of my emotions and nature, very expressive artworks emerge. Each painting is a journey that I go through again and again. Until I feel that balance, form, and all emotions have been fully transferred onto the canvas, I cannot say that the painting is finished.

I approach photography in a similar way. However, the presence of people, nature, the composition, and the moment itself strongly influence the final outcome. My view through the lens allows me to capture a moment that I see, feel, and experience in a unique way. Later, during the process of editing photographs, I return once again to my inspirations and driving forces—nature and emotions—and strive for each photograph to carry its own unique signature.

FLOW: The Drina River in the Painting of Natalija Miladinović

Curatorial text: Biljana Jotić, MA in Art History, Curator

“…At the place where the Drina bursts forth with the full weight of its water mass, green and foaming…” — excerpt from the book The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić.

What color is water?

As we move along and pass by water, observing it from the banks of rivers, seas, and oceans, from the horizon as the boundary of our field of vision where water and sky meet, I wonder: are there places and moments when the color of water is identical? Are there beings that are identical?

Depending on its depth, width, the sky above it, its surroundings, the riverbed, and finally its course, water changes its strength and, consequently, its color. In this sense, the exhibition of the new series by Natalija Miladinović is simply titled Flow. Created through a shared reflection between the artist, the curator, and the exhibition space—as a kind of parable about nature—the title speaks of the relationship between the nature of humans and humans within nature. It speaks about experiences that guide the further course of life. The question of nature has never been more important than it is today.

An active engagement with nature continues in Natalija Miladinović’s work. From the painting Global Warming, which was part of the ULUS Spring Exhibition in 2020 titled Where Does the Future Begin?, through the Emerald cycle, and now to this exhibition in which the artist presents herself to the public during March at the Štab Gallery. Natalija Miladinović continues the story of nature through color—through its structure and intensity. With the presented cycle she condenses reflections on an ever-deepening need for nature.

The very mention of the concept of nature evokes different associations, which could be compared to all those reflections that give water its color. Thus, we recognize nature through the meanings of the word itself: the nature of a human being, the nature of things, the nature of materials, the nature of color, or the nature that surrounds and shapes us. This theme is particularly important today, when we are witnesses to a parallel immaterial reality in which sensuality and experience still need to be understood and defined.

Natalija communicates with the canvas through color and gesture, which is a defining characteristic of her visual language. She expresses herself through layers of color applied directly onto the canvas, without preliminary drawing or form. Abstracted shapes emerge from gestures that represent the time of reflection during the very process of application. The intensity of tonal values becomes the intellectual intensity of experience.

Although the symbolism of the color green is connected with the previous cycle of paintings in which she explored the natural properties of the emerald gemstone, the intensity here is different. It becomes a question of the nature of the movement of the earth and the water within it. The emerald green color originates from the meeting of chemical elements from distant places within the Earth’s crust, formed over time through tectonic movements. The Drina flows along the tectonic structure of high karst terrain, following a winding course remembered in the saying: “Who could ever straighten the crooked Drina?” Because of its green color, it was once called Zelenka. The paintings from the Flow series carry precisely that color and intensity.

The space of the painting continues within the associations of the viewer. The reduction of space in the relationships between the elements of Natalija Miladinović’s paintings is well known. The abstraction of parts of the image allows the content to move beyond the formal spatial and temporal framework within the painting itself. The dynamics of color continue within the dynamics of the exhibition setting and the time of the viewer’s presence. Everything flows—within the paintings and within the space they adapt to—just as a river flows along its course.

The structure of the exhibition is based on the rhythm of different combinations: from grouped paintings in polyptychs, to individual works with distinct character, to the appearance of objects that enter the field of sculpture. This intrusion of a sculptural moment among the paintings appears here for the first time.

The challenging philosophy of Heraclitus produced centuries ago the well-known words “Everything flows” (Panta rhei), conveying the meaning of change—the idea that the only constant is change. The transformation of structure and color in the paintings from the Flow cycle encourages and activates reflections in each viewer about nature—about its vulnerability, both external and internal—and about spontaneous experiences of the need for peace without imposed shapes and forms. The strength of art, and therefore of the human being, may be measured by the strength of the flow—in this case, the flow of the Drina River, once called Zelenka.

Biljana Jotić MA in Art History, Curator