Friday, September 16, 2011

Dragana Crnjak





These images are from an installation by Dragana Crnjak in a show at the main Herron art gallery @ IUPUI in Indianapolis, IN. These images are done in acrylic and charcoal. The marks in charcoal seem to have shadows underneath as the charcoal dust fall, which gives them an implied dimension while the others marks are flat. There is an interesting play of space involved. Before I had more clues as to what the image was about (migration, for one thing), I had a sense of the natural or wild being expressed.

As seen in the detail, some of the marks are of animals such as wolves - though even they blend in with the overall abstractness. She also mentioned ideas relating to villiage and community. And there is definitely wildness going on.

I went to her lecture on Wednesday. She is from Bosnia and her family came to the USA with refugee status. Some of her works, like the ones below, are more about houses (sometimes upside down), displacement and negative space.

I Flipped (2007)


Unusual Morning (2007)

More can be seen at her website: http://www.draganacrnjak.com/