Biserka Petrovic is a painter artist in Florence and is currently teaching Fine Arts in our school. Here is a brief talk with her so as to get to know her artworks and her conception of art.
What sparked your interest in Art? and when did this happen?
I have been drawing since I was a kid, painting since elementary school. I remember that the most interesting for me in high school was drawing portraits of friends and teachers in the classroom. It was not art that I saw that moved me, but something inside me wanted to find the expression that can’t be expressed in some other way.
Where do you think lies the source of your creativity?
Difficult question. Usually we’re born with it, and then if the surroundings are supportive, it grows, feeding itself always with new challenges.
How can you explain to our readers the differences between the current artistic scene in Serbia and in Italy?
They are different for the different backgrounds in the past, and the different historical circumstances (while Italy was the cradle of Renaissance thanks to the society that was growing up, trying to raise its culture, just in the proportion of the economic growth, Serbia was an independent kingdom from 9th to 14th century and then it was a vassal country under the Turks for almost 600 years). Nowadays, the situation has changed, and despite all the difficulties the the Balcanic countries are still in, we really have all the possibilities for developing art. Maybe in Serbia we’re more looking in the future than the Italians do, because we are not in debt with the tradition.
Can you tell a name of a classic artist that has guided you through your artistic education?
I admire Caravaggio for his courage to show things that before him were always hidden in art, and of course for his great mastering of the light and Botticelli for his great sense of beauty.
And what about a contemporary artist?
Contemporary artists, among painters Lucian Freud, that involved his special vision of human flesh and Janny Saville, who is very similar to him and to Bacon. Then, David Hockney, his linear drawings above all. Among the conceptual ones I like Matthew Barney for his monumental mythology and Maurizio Cattelan for his genial sculptures. I admire Hirst because he seems to be a God of marketing, like it was Picasso before.
Now let’s talk a little about your artworks. I found for example the “Alienazione” and the “Paesaggio ematico” series very impressive, how did they originate?
Making art for me is a process of liberation of some thought or a feeling. Considering that, in the Alienation I’m thinking about mankind as well as about the woman figure, her role now and its natural function, separating of the world and turning to the inside. Being able to understand the world is coming after understanding yourself, if it ever happens, of course. “Haematic Landscapes” are the liberation of anger that I felt in the certain period of my life. The butchered meat is a personification of a situation of a human kind, and also my personal fairytale, or horror, depends on the points of view. The subjects that I use always have the beauty in themselves in my eyes. I’m magically attracted by bones and flash, maybe for the history of my country, and the life that I was living not so long ago. Then every “Haematic landscapes” has a fairytale to tell, it’s not that the meat is in those positions by chance, I made it on purpose like it is.
Now it has been 6 years that you have been living in Italy: can you tell us something good and something bad about our Country?
Italy is a place from a dream for many things: the art and architecture, the way of living, the beauty of landscape and climate and the “singing” language that I fell in love with the first time I heard it. Then the perfume of the best coffee in the world from the bars in the morning.The words can’t tell..I have to paint it. Nothing so bad to talk about…
What are your plans for the future?
Now I’m working on paintings that research again the human body, a project connected with “the Alienation” and I’m planning a new solo show in about two months, when my new works will be ready.
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Interview with the artists: Susan Hefuna, Tian Tian Wang, Aleksandra Mir.
In Italian
“Human puzzle – Dipinti interattivi” la mostra di Biserka Petrovic alla Galleria Via Larga di Firenze.
Collezioni, collezionisti e curatori: una conversazione con Giovanni Blanco, Francesco e Carlo Falciani a lato della mostra Sammeln
Pittura e fotografia: Nei panni dell’altro – In Someone Else’s Shoes, intervista a Lauraballa.
Accademia del Giglio, italian language, art and culture in Florence, Italy.
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