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natalija mijatovic
Serbian-American, b. 1974
Natalija Mijatovic received a B.F.A. from the University of Montenegro, and a M.F.A. in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts. Mijatovic has exhibited internationally in many solo and invitational exhibits: CUE Art Foundation in New York; Museum of American Art, Philadelphia; Moderne Kunst Aus Montenegro - Stephansdom, Vienna, Austria; International Festival of Alternative Cultural Exchange (F.A.C.E.) - Belgrade and Novi Sad, Serbia; Cluj and Bucharest, Romania; Plovdiv and Sofia, Bulgaria; Sarajevo, Bosnia; Strasbourg, France; Eindhoven, The Netherlands; and Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennial, Italy. Mijatovic is a recipient of many international awards including the Joan Mitchell Foundation M.F.A. Grant, New York; Faculty Excellence Award at the Savannah College of Art and Design, GA; Center For Contemporary Art Award in Podgorica, Montenegro; and residencies such is Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, France. She has been a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro since 1998. Mijatovic has artwork reproduced, and interviews published in various publications in Austria, France, Serbia, Montenegro and the United States: Art Crowd, Artension, Dan, Der Standard, Glas Crnogoraca, House Style, Likovni Zivot, Monitor, Most, Nasa Borba, New American Paintings, Novosti, Philadelphia Weekly, Pobjeda, Politika, Publika, Vijesti. She is currently a Professor and Department Chair in the Fine Art department at Binghamton University (SUNY).
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Artist Statement
Internally, I dwell in uninhabited residual landscapes of urban decay and gray facades of soc-realist architecture of Eastern Europe. I remember my previous life as a wintery silence of an empty city, ashes of the burnt home, and snow. General theme of my work is industrial landscape, my recurrent interest in manmade structures and objects defined by the quiet void of human presence. My approach is an amalgam of extracting visual shapes from their logical setting (electric power plants, wiring systems, factory interiors) taken out of the context, yet realistically rendered; and juxtaposing them against flat or sub-spatial backgrounds. The underlying grid system references industrial spaces with a rich history of human activity, alluded to through architectural forms. Multilayered veils of thin glazed surfaces reduce industrial structures to a residual patina that recalls space and time. This creates the idea of traces of human presence felt in the residue of the space’s emptiness. These traces are revealed in the subtle implications of representational imagery like wire, electrical equipment, and wooden beams, and yet they are abstracted so that their presence borders on the surreal. Subtle linear system ties my entire oeuvre together: the structure remains intact beneath the curtain that the viewer navigates, recalling their own experiences and nostalgic inference associated with these now unoccupied industrial spaces and landscapes.