1515 Lincoln Gallery
Oklahoma City, OK
1515 Lincoln Gallery features new discoveries of contemporary artists and and secondary market works of art by Oklahoma, national and international artists
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Artist: Miodrag Mladjovic (b. 1960)
In 1979. Mlađović enrolled to the Academy of Fine Arts in Priština and he completed his studies 1983, at the department of graphic. He became the member of the Union of Fine Arts of Kosovo in Priština in 1985. In the same year he started his postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade and he finished them two years later. Between 1983. and 1992. he worked as a free-lance artist. In 1992. he started to work as the assistant at the Graphic department of the Faculty of Fine arts in Belgrade. Now he works as a full time professor of graphic art at Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade.
In 1998-2000. he taught graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Niš. In 1997 he was the visiting graphic artist at the Graphic center "Illios" in Thessaloniki as a part of the program "Thessaloniki, Cultural Capital of Europe 1997."
Solo and group exhibitions: He exhibited in the solo shows in Belgrade, Kragujevac, Lazarevac, Prijepolje, Sremska Mitrovica, Apatin, Zrenjanin, Niš, Čačak, Požega, Herceg Novi, Kragujevac…
He exhibited in more than 300 group shows - exhibitions in Serbia and abroad. He took part in many group exhibitions abroad (Berlin, Frederikstad, Varna, Ljubljana, Krakow, Gyor, Thessaloniki, Gabrovo, Kiev, Sofia, Maribor, Lahti...).
Awards: Large Seal of Grafički kolektiv, May exhibition of graphics, Grafički kolektiv Gallery, 2003, Diploma for graphics, 4 International Triennial of graphic biennale, Dry Point, Užice 2005, Grand Prix, III International group exhibition "Collage and Assemblage", NUBS Gallery, Belgrade, 2004.
Works of Miodrag Mladjović are in numerous private collections, collections of the galleries in Serbia and abroad, in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary art in Belgrade and in collection of National Museum in Belgrade.
Artist Statement:
Miodrag Mlađović is an artist of broad interests who in inspirational moments when developing certain ideas and searching for an adequate expression gradually and imperceptibly moves into different disciplines. Aware that his artistic realization can only be attained within the framework of contemporary visual expression and modern reflection, Mlađović adopts current visual tendencies. His exploration leads him into abstraction while synthesizing the form takes him into a new imaginative world, free play of associations as well as very inspiring and inventive forms of visual images. When inspired and when developing certain ideas, he surpasses the limited scope of one technique and gradually moves into the field of other disciplines and fine art exploration. Fascinated by metal constructions, creative and imaginative he creates a dramatic world which exists in fantastic forms of clearly reduced form. Imaginative with a feeling for measure he surrenders to emotions and to another new form of abstract expression of contemporaneity attempting to solve the essential problems of form, searching for the establishment of a visual balance of masses, seeking to achieve drama in their mutual relations.
Adopting a new sensitivity, he discovers and respects the new rules of visual expression. His artwork shows a consistent and dynamic development where certain ideas are made more profound and open towards unknown and unexplored fine art issues. Although he was educated in printmaking, he seeks new forms of expression in the spirit of contemporary tendencies seeking his own style and handwriting in harmony with his sensitivity.
Mlađović’s installations-objects confront us with the exploration of iconographic issues with the same intensity we are used to seeing in his printmaking oeuvre since most of the installations have evolved from prints. The artist calls his work spatial-drawings saying: “Drawings made out of iron evolve into a construction of linear-abstract form. The light penetrates through the net-like metallic parts and builds new rhythms of light and shade on the white background of the galley wall”. Using the welding technique, he constructs the realistic forms, gravitating towards the abstract representation achieved by the line as the basic means of exploration. He achieves a linear movement through the relationship of dense parts and the plastic structure, between sensual and spiritual experiences. We can feel and recognize in the artwork different combinations of visual observations in a play of associations. Skillfully composing waste material, the artists has constructed his own new universe. Wires of different diameter function as lines composing a strange arabesque. In order to intensify the experience, the artist adds pieces of iron or some other material. The association produced by Mlađović’s art as his randomly stacked cone of iron is closest to Duchamp’s discarded objects in the service of art. Mlađović says: “The spatial ambient objects construct an ambient entity. They can be observed from all angles and they construct a link with the spatial drawing on the wall. They do not tend to turn into a sculptural shape or form”. Electric conductors, springs, toothed wheels, bent pieces of iron that have an associative character, cannot be seen in their symbolic dimension but only as parts of a whole. Mlađović shows in a simple way how beauty can be found where we do not expect it. If the relationships within the form are composed in such a way that they represent an experience, we are close to art.