Untitled_U10artspace_2016

Untitled marked a turning point in my practice, shaped by the tension between underground freedom and institutional frameworks. For years, I worked in BIGZ, Belgrade’s legendary hub of alternative culture, where abandoned spaces became laboratories of resistance. That raw energy formed the foundation of this exhibition, but so did the realization that art created in defiance of systems is inevitably confronted with them.

The works embody this contradiction: gestural urgency collides with compositional references to high art; reckless layering meets careful precision. Each painting captures extremes—ecstasy and uncertainty, assertion and vulnerability—while refusing to settle into resolution. By drawing from popular culture, art history, and personal symbols, I created canvases where diverse references collided, echoing the instability of the time.

Untitled also reflected a personal transition, coinciding with a residency in Paris. It confronted me with the fragility of belief in art as pure freedom, forcing me to see autonomy not as absolute, but as something negotiated. The exhibition became a site of resistance in motion—art that lives in the in-between, continuously questioning how freedom can be sustained within structures that resist it.