Art review: Paintings utilize patterns found in Serbian art
There is a timelessness to how certain aspects of architecture affect us. Places of worship often create, or hope to create, a sense of communion with something divine.
If you’ve ever sat in the Duomo in Milan, Italy, you might get a sense of what I mean. This Gothic cathedral’s interior has an atmosphere all its own, and the multiple approaches and styles used over 600 years to construct it work together to create this. All of the visual aspects begin to commingle as you sit and look about.
If a Gothic building could be abstract, in a way, this one is. It gives you the opportunity to contemplate the infinite in a way that recalls the many hands it took to make it.
Dragana Crnjak: As if Stayingis an exhibition of several large acrylic paintings in which the artist utilizes images of patterns found in Serbian embroidery, architecture and works of art she collected while visiting Serbian Orthodox medieval monasteries in 2015. There is a sense of deep contemplation as you look at these works.
Rendered into large abstract paintings through a process of manipulation and enlargement, each one of these works has a sense of perspective and color that while subtle and often airy, has an intricacy that is nothing short of dazzling.
Meetingis a layered work featuring fine lines of color with multiple layers of underpainting, covered in a grayish blue wash that has highlights of pink. On top of the underpainting are more fine lines in various thicknesses. These lines give the work a sense of movement and structure and help not only to pull your eye around the surface but also give you an impression of size. This work, and indeed all the paintings in the show, give you a feeling similar to that of watching a sunset or standing on a cliff overlooking a mountainscape. You could get closer, but you might fall in.
Shortcuthas a lightly patterned surface with webbing or broken glass elements painted on top. It’s as if someone made a stained-glass piece, but only used color where the glass abuts another piece of glass. Grays, peach, greens and ochre colors make up the fragile web of structural elements.
Silent Countsuggests torn wallpaper. Circular patterns, faded embroidery, vertical lines, jagged white space with an intersecting yellow ochre zigzagging element make it extra-compelling. The central zigzagging event acts like a time element, documenting the different layers of the work throughout history.
While the piece is certainly not hundreds of years old, there is an element of time overtly expressed. One wonders if the artist came upon a construction site in one of the places she visited and found multiple patterned elements to consider and remember.
Near here is the landis a large work with multiple subtle gray patterns used for underpainting. On top of the lowest layer is a dark blue wash, and above that are multiple colored lines, vertical and horizontal. This piece has the sensation of an artist trying to understand how the modern era interacts with history. There is a data collecting/visualization element that, while not necessarily what the artist intended, is nonetheless an active presence.
The structural line elements in this work, unlike most of the others on display, create a barrier. Where these elements pull you into most of the other works, here the lines hold you back and serve almost like a fence or a “keep out” sign.
Dragana Crnjak makes engaging, high quality works of art. She is an associate professor at Youngstown State University teaching painting and drawing, an example of their excellent faculty. If you want to know more about some of the artists making work in Northeast Ohio, investigating Crnjak would be a great place to start.
