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An Apotheosis Of The Studenica Landscape
All the prints in this exhibition are distinguished by the supremely recognizable expressiveness of the artist's hand, which, like a seal with the owner's heraldic device, unequivocally proclaims that their author can be no other than Biljana Vukovic, and which does not allow them to be mistaken for the work of any other artist in the world.Another of their distinctive features is a passionate commitment to landscape as subject-matter, particularly the unique scenery around the Studenica monastery. The artist Biljana Vukovic, who is a great walker and yet in ontological essence a flyer, repeatedly directs her gaze full of love and unquenchable exploratory ardor towards the mountain glade of Savine Livade from the elevated vantage point of Savina Isposnica. Yellow or green depending on the time of year, the rotund curves of the meadows are only a part of a vast body of immeasurable size, which stretches into the distance as far as the eye can see. Segments of this immense body, its individual folds, its bulges or sharp elevations, the brightly lit areas or deep shadows hiding still unfathomed secrets, the trees and haystacks sprouting from its skin, as if from the skin of the Monster Whale in the Russian tale The Little Humpbacked Horse - all these carry over from print to print, constituting a whole, like a series of cantos in an epic poem.
For decades now, Vukovic has gone about bringing the landscape to life and awakening the sleeping giant through work in situ, sketching with rapid strokes of remarkable vigor. The complex creative process of printmaking has then been carried on in the artist's studio, bearing the powerful imprint of Vukovic's spiritual metamorphosis. The final outcome - the print itself - is never merely a traveler's sketch. Although the image customarily bears an undeniable likeness to the chosen motif, it represents, in essence, a synthesis of the charts of the artist's state of mind, and the outcome of her Pygmalion-like endeavor to "move mountains", and shape her own planet, only nominally resembling the Studenica landscape as we know it.
The seed sown long ago in the process of awakening the mythical, in which the landscape is a personification of nameless giants, is now evidently sprouting thanks to a favorable personal climate. Vigorous strokes, vibrant colors and magical light effects combine to shape a cosmic amphitheater, where gigantic bodies are entwined in a fateful embrace, while the innocent lanterns of the tree tops, illuminated by the setting sun's farewell rays, glimmer "like a chant in the dusk". The gentle highlights, ranging all the way to white, introduce a lyrical note necessary for preserving the balance of forces. In the landscape itself there are larger areas of white, which have deliberately been left without color. In Vukovic's own words, these places hint at a mystery, for, according to the code of Oriental art, white is not a blank; it is, we might add, the mysterious mirror of a yet unrevealed destiny. If there is any end to the quest at all, it will most likely be found in these symbolic emblems of the abyss of expanded consciousness.
Vesna Todorovic
(Translated by Ana Popovic Pecic)