Dragana Crnjak, born in Bosnia in 1977, moved to the United States in 1997. She received her BFA in Painting from Myers School of Art at the University of Akron, Ohio in 2002 and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia in 2004. She is recipient of Virginia Museum of Fine Art Professional Fellowship in drawing and Individual Excellence Award from Ohio Arts Council. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Youngstown State University teaching painting and drawing.
Artist Statement
Since I moved from Bosnia to the United States in 1997, displacement as both a verb and a state of mind has been important part of my working processes. The questions of location and placement have become harder to answer, suggesting an existence in between different worlds, cultures, and dialogs. Thus for me, the process of drawing implies recording, diagramming my thinking, daily observations as well as memories in an attempt to understand the ubiquitous interweaving of past and present, memory and tangible reality.
I am drawn intuitively to the ideas of the uplifting but still fragile energy of a new beginning, a sense of levitation, the transitional moments of becoming and vanishing. The forms and shapes, resembling architectural features of a house, fence as well as stones, sticks, bones and flies, imply transitional moments of growing and developmental processes. Resembling both monumental and microscopic visions, the suggested structures often struggle with their own stability -- it is unclear whether the structures are being built or destroyed.
Lately, I have been thinking of the development of villages as a metaphor for the unstructured, spontaneous, ever-changing,
rhizome-like space in which hierarchy and dominance is questioned, a space that spreads unpredictably, where no two objects exist parallel to one another. This idea corresponds to my thinking of drawing as a way of open-ended thinking, discovering and invention.
Artist Statement
Since I moved from Bosnia to the United States in 1997, displacement as both a verb and a state of mind has been important part of my working processes. The questions of location and placement have become harder to answer, suggesting an existence in between different worlds, cultures, and dialogs. Thus for me, the process of drawing implies recording, diagramming my thinking, daily observations as well as memories in an attempt to understand the ubiquitous interweaving of past and present, memory and tangible reality.
I am drawn intuitively to the ideas of the uplifting but still fragile energy of a new beginning, a sense of levitation, the transitional moments of becoming and vanishing. The forms and shapes, resembling architectural features of a house, fence as well as stones, sticks, bones and flies, imply transitional moments of growing and developmental processes. Resembling both monumental and microscopic visions, the suggested structures often struggle with their own stability -- it is unclear whether the structures are being built or destroyed.
Lately, I have been thinking of the development of villages as a metaphor for the unstructured, spontaneous, ever-changing,
rhizome-like space in which hierarchy and dominance is questioned, a space that spreads unpredictably, where no two objects exist parallel to one another. This idea corresponds to my thinking of drawing as a way of open-ended thinking, discovering and invention.
Dragana Crnjak
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