Olja Ivanjicki

Book excerpt: "Olja Ivanjicki is one of Serbia's most important and best-loved contemporary artists. Producing work since the 1950s, she first came to prominence in her native country as the sole female member of Mediala, a group of painters, writers and architects that made a significant impact on the public and cultural life of Belgrade in the late fifties and early sixties. Recipient of a Ford Foundation scholarship in 1962, Ivanjicki left Serbia to live and work, albeit briefly, in the United States, where she was brought into contact with Pop Art. This was to have a lasting influence on her work." "Ivanjicki's paintings are distinguished by the way they combine figures and symbols from diverse cultures and civilizations - past, present and future - to form imaginative montages that evoke the spirit of an age in almost cinematic terms. Renaissance madonnas, military leaders, idealized human types, famous scientists, great artists and major politicians all exist simultaneously in the world of her art. However, Ivanjicki is much more than just a painter. She is also a sculptor, poet, newspaper columnist, costume designer and architect. Into all these media she infuses the unique power of her character and artistic skill." "Olja Ivanjicki: Painting the Future, written in the main part by the artist herself and supplemented with an introduction by writer and critic Sue Hubbard, investigates all aspects of her work over the course of her long and distinguished career, and by doing so brings her work to the wider international audience it richly deserves." --Book Jacket.