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Vesna Todorović

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Biljana's "Crumbs of Beautu"

The image of Landscape has governed the prints of Biljana Vukovic since the time she began creating her own world. Without a real rival, Landscape has always been in her heart, her thoughts and her eyes. Landscape is the essential Truth that embodies her dreams and imagination. According to Biljana, Landscape is a live organism and its pulsation heralds continuous transformations. Her permanently alert sensors cannot resist this sacred bidding and Biljana embarks upon journeys. She plunges into her spiritual-intellectual adventures in order to participate in the immense, solemn manifestation of Nature's emanation of power - its unity with the soul of Man. Entirely surrendered to this impact, Biljana absorbs the features, meanings and radiations of strength of the chosen Landscape with all the vast sincerity of her self. She stops being a mere onlooker long before she slips into the circles of the mental-emotional creative processes.

In identifying herself with Landscape, she unerringly recognizes the arguments of Its power, notwithstanding Its designated qualities; may it be cruel or gentle, open or mystical. In the works of Biljana Vukovic such indications of the psychological structure of the essence of Landscape are personified in a specific, expressive way: in the masterfully proportioned the masses and an ensuing monumental grandeur. This monumentality is present as an axiom in her entire opus, and it naturally leads us to the resulting awareness that monumental grandeur is the authentic emblem of her work. Quite obviously related to the experience of the Motif, that is, Landscape, in a feedback coupling of the Artist and the Work, this emblem endorses the fundamental attitude of Biljana Vukovic.

Within the methodologically positioned network of our mental archeology, inside the same probe and carefully hidden behind the screen of introspection, there is a whole ocean of feelings. This is a fact of colossal importance, because in that emotional quality lies the source of her creative force: only during the process of creation Biljana is unable to conceal the power of her true passion: the artist relentlessly spends herself, her energy and her emotions in that drama of "giving and taking", and passes through unavoidable temptations of the multiple circles of her own creativity. What exactly happens inside them?

The First circle comprises meditation before the Landscape, as long as the day, during which Biljana leaves her Self, flying around the Landscape in search of Its Soul. This vision can be called identification, since the psychoanalysis of dreams qualifies Landscape as the unresearched part of one's own Self. Such occasions produce sketches in pencil or oil. Since the sketches of Biljana Vukovic" are never laconic records of personal impressions, she chooses oil as more suitable medium: it can better follow her structured demands.

In one of the circles a new subject-matter appears, flowing from interesting, highly indicative Dreams of flying, accompanied with a dual meaning: as the Flyer/Eagle/Biljana investigates areas of the subconscious, but in the so called "deja vu" Landscape (Machu Picchu), unavoidably posing the question of reincarnation - has the Landscape already been seen in another life. The result: a series of drawings and prints expressly dramatic - in Biljana's case everything begins and exists in the drawing.

The next circle - in relation to the classical creative process possibly the final one; however, since there are no final issues in Biljana's work, this circle stays just one of the curves in the spiral. As she states, above the matrix the mind frees itself from all control and foreknowledge, and makes place for spontaneity - the sketch of the visible landscape is only a mental bridge to the now distant motif. In the renewed/new experience of the physically distant double of her soul, Biljana realizes her "crumbs of beauty".

If journeys are a precondition of such incarnation, then we must elucidate the imaginary geographic map into which Biljana Vukovic inscribes the stations of her pilgrimages. We also sense a personal, probably secret, itinerary: Studenica, Sopodani, Kalenic, Thassos, Machu Picchu, Visegrad...

The common denominator of their significance is an archetype that binds them more firmly than any formal feature of the commonplace geographic toponyms: a hill or a hilly landscape, the presence or vicinity of a place of cult or another important object. This proves that the "map" contains only those places that sum up the unusually powerful energies. The imaginative moment is realized through the mandatory all-encompassing look "from above". It is the look of the Flyer, whose eyes are replete with the essential representation of the scene. And its constellation could be interpreted as the contact between three elements: Hill - Earth, Sky - Air, Ocean/River - Water. Only the Hill exists as an exclusive element of the composition. Otherwise, the Sky is in a dialogue with the Earth, and the Water in this triad has meanings dependent on the role of light.

The significance of each station on Biljana's road is measured by the power of the place, and this in return, by the quantity of challenge needed to instigate the creation of graphic series, combined into cyclic entities. This cyclic quality as such assumes returns to particular places. However, It does not necessarily mean that Biljana should return to the same locality - she has absorbed it forever during the initial "seance of entering the Soul of the Landscape". The Motif once experienced reappears every time it becomes "active" in her again as a new expression - newly perceived problems or solutions. Like in a friendly correspondence - old friends should not be neglected for the sake of new ones. So all of the motifs continue their parallel existence within her artistic and spiritual orbit. Is there any better proof of the significant power of a certain place?

Vesna Todorovic
(translated by Ksenija Todorovic)