Dustbowl
“Entropy” 2013/2014. Drawing, 176 x 126 cm, 2013. The concept of entropy comes from Physics and Second law of Thermodynamics. It is a measure of the level of disorder in a closed but changing system in which energy can only be transferred in one direction from an ordered state to a disordered state. Higher the entropy, higher the disorder and lower the availability of the system's energy to do useful work. The death of the universe is thought to be in the coldness, in objects becoming so isolated that they become spread out on an unimaginably huge distances, unable to interact ever again. All towards the constant state at the end of time, where the universe is at the standstill, where there’s no time passing and entropy doesn’t exist anymore because there’s no need for it. There’s nothing left, nothing that would lose energy over time. Being interested in physics, I find the idea of entropy very poetic and beautiful. I both like and fear the fact that everything is inevitably changing over time, towards chaos. I’m connecting the notion of entropy with loss of one’s personal memory and contemporary degradation of society as a closed system. There are two ways in which entropy is evident in society: one is where the values are being changed over time and usually for the worse. We are going towards isolation, alienation, towards less interaction, becoming more money oriented, becoming less “human”. In the case of Serbia, which is in the process of transition, I became the witness of different personal and cultural downfalls. People dealing with battles they can’t win, in an effort to release the country from the grip of corruption and “grey area” business. Usage of culture as a gentrification tool, shallow “emperor’s new clothes” art, kitsch TV programme, is a way to eradicate ones will to change anything to better. It is, in a way, a “power fight” between the rich people who can influence the law and ordinary people who are aware of these things, but are in the state of perpetual waiting for better tomorrow. On the other hand, we have personal entropy, degradation of our precious memories or their change over time, losing the innocence, creativity, authentic happiness, voluntary actions, till we become drained by the society and political system. Our wishes change, becoming more grandeur each time - we want more and better things instead of being happy with what we have. The works are depicting these processes.

Nothing comes from isolation
Drawing, 178 x 104 cm, 2013. Drawing, 192 x 144 cm, 2013. Drawing, 160 x 144 cm, 2013. Growing up, I would imagine that behind the last row of houses, which I could see from my balcony, there is the landscape. Usually, I would be on the balcony at dusk, watching the space between two buildings...because I wasn’t able to see anything but the sky and the top of one tree, I would imagine that there is a meadow leading to the forest and onwards to hills, instead of a big factory that is really there. I noticed that the balcony was turned towards the west and that fact become symbolic for me – since the nineties, everyone in my surroundings considered that the "West" meant spiritual freedom and a normal relaxed life. That new life was so close, behind the last row of houses. When I started dealing with art, the basis of my work was in the context of social (in) justice. Coming from the personal experience and from the research of Serbian society, it became clear that we are not the ones who decide what happens with our personal time and our lives. I was interested in how the society in whole works, in what way we are forced to change our attitudes and desires over time; what is behind the surface of the effective society, how circumstances in culture shape us and how the place where we grew up formed our future. That place also formed our personal mental landscape; it became part of us, as we are part of it. Landscape is both a possibility and impossibility. Desolate and naked, it is symbolic. It represents our privately accumulated, conceptual habitat, which exists in our minds and is influenced by the shape of the external world. Empty scenery, distant, muted and grey, is still a fertile ground. A tactile and fragile, unstable, it is there to help us develop ideas and find inspiration; it is open to suggestions and communication. At first, the drawings were a "non-places", places that did not have a defined theme, such as a piece of grass between two buildings. Gradually, they have changed towards the defined locations - boundless plains, mountains, misty hills. These places are intimate and fabricated.

Horizont
Drawing, 500 x 200 cm