'EXCESS' / Mina Radović
curated by Nataša Radojević
23 February - 23 April, 2023
DRINA GALLERY
Krunska 73, Belgrade
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| Photo credit: Nemanja Maras |
The exhibition EXCESS, curated by Nataša Radojević, brings together a selection of large, medium, and small format oil paintings on canvas from the latest production created in the period between 2022 and 2023.
Mina Radović approaches her art through a critical analysis of the contemporary relationship between man and product, focusing on artificially implemented visual content of desired proportions and colours. She opposes the consumerist perception of the body, which has become a platform on which masses are arbitrarily added and subtracted.
Her new cycle of images arose as a natural outcome of her long-term research and the center of her artistic preoccupation. Initially, she painted oversized bodies, then later emphasized its particular parts, as well as the relationship between skin and stone, thereby emphasizing the position of the woman who is literally and metaphorically trapped in imposed social patterns. Through these works, she emphasized signs of a living being that breaks through imposed, petrified structures. Her work acquired a new formal dimension with the creation of a film about the crossing of fats, which was a medium she used for her doctoral thesis.
Her latest focuses on the theme of skin, with her surplus in focus. Radović tries not to reject the surplus of skin, thereby directly opposing the beauty industry and the cult of youth. On the contrary, the surplus of skin and its features - roughness, sagging, softness - become a source of creative tension and a tool for shaping form.
Her images are conceived roughly, naturalistically, and crudely, through the exploration of sculptural in a two-dimensional space. The range of colours simultaneously brings the viewer closer and farther from the original idea of the body, often contrasting strong, vibrant hues with natural skin colours. She cultivates a refined sculptural approach in accordance with her reflections and criticisms of aesthetic demands. The body is abstract, while at the same time, abstraction possesses corporality - despite being detached from an exact form, the viewer is able to intuitively understand the existence of the skin depicted on the canvas.
The representation of the body in consumerism is one of the controversial and often criticized aspects of modern society. The body is a reflection of social values and imposed oppressive patterns. In accordance with this, the forms of Radović's works follow the legacy of abstraction, in which fluidity and body movement are expressed using curves and soft lines, but instead of following established norms and ideals of sensuality, she turns to criticism and deeper reflection on the role of the body/skin and its modulation. The skin parts in the paintings do not have the potential to completely reject the context that presses them, and in accordance with that, the forms are bent, intertwined, and conflicted on the canvas, illustrating the social pressure under which they are created.
Nataša Radojević, exhibition curator
MINA RADOVIĆ (1988) is a multimedia artist whose projects spans across video art, painting and sculpture. She holds a degree in painting at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade where she also completed her master studies. She earned her Interdisciplinary Ph.D. degree with the thesis in Digital Art at the University of Arts in Belgrade in 2018. She presented her work numerous solo and group exhibitions in regionally and internationally. Her work is a part of private and public collections in Serbia and abroad.