By developing a visual language of observation and recollection, past and present, serenity and disorientation, Tatjana seeks to reconcile her relation to the disparate places she calls home: Serbia, which she left as a young adult, and Canada, where she lives now. Her goal is to further refine this exploration of homeland and belonging. She is interested in how this affects creativity and how new artistic connections are made between old and new cultural references.
Tatjana’s visual vocabulary is influenced by geometric abstract expressionism for its fragmentation and combination of close-ups, cross-sections, and aerial views to communicate the subjective feeling of a place. Guiding her practice are theories of displacement, the concept of hybridity, and the work of Eastern European neo-avant-garde artists exploring country and home, as well as their convergence and divergence. She combines her native cultural memories, such as Serbian ethnic motifs and nostalgia for the naivety of Yugoslav utopia, with the contemporary concerns of western Canada, especially the BC coast’s complicated history and endangered future.
Her artistic practice is based on experimental and iterative approaches to abstract painting, utilizing semiotics and genealogy. The materials and processes include drawing and painting and the recent experimentation with fabric art, serigraphy, and three-dimensionality. The methods of approaching the materials are tied to deeper meanings. For instance, destructive and reparative processes such as cutting and patching, fading and splattering, and tearing and repairing re-enact the experiences inherent in the lives of displaced people. Tatjana finds this manner of making meditative, initiates a contemporary reverie, and opens up the possibility for new depths of understanding.