Dragica Janketic-Carlin

Croatia

“My recent paintings continue to explore the notion of reciprocal action between man and his environment, between imagination and reality and, finally, search for an abstract visual language that captures the interplay between the metaphysical and the world of value. Photographs of urban spaces and ephemeral sights seen while roaming the streets of East London provide an important creative impetus. Thus, the light of an autumn afternoon reflected in the broken window of a defunct warehouse, barbed wire, arches below a railway bridge, suspiciously curated flowerpots precariously balanced on a roof terrace, streetlamps posing as heroic monuments, the blueness of a door, the casual glance of a black bird, are all harvested and alchemised to embody the vitality and tension of reality-making. The emotional response to the juxtaposition of elements in these found compositions is paramount to the process of art production, indeed driving the very movement and intensity of my brush.

I believe, in painting, beauty can only be harnessed and presented to the viewer by resolving its formal components. Abstraction, whether I convey it in photography or in painting, is merely a metaphor for the transcendental aspect of objects and their meanings. I see the abstract in everything around me, existing seemingly discretely, only waiting to be discovered and placed in its proper context of meaning. Any object can thus serve as the vehicle to probe this, ultimately inconceivable, world and, coupled with imagination, can create subjective order from the chaos of boundless possibilities. This fills me with hope.� - Dragica Janketic-Carlin

Dragica was born and raised in Croatia by parents passionate about art. She matriculated first in art history at the college for Culture and Arts in Zagreb then began art production in earnest. She came to London in 1993 completing a BA in painting from the Chelsea College of Art and Design with honours, followed by a Masters degree in 1997. As an emerging abstract painter she has exhibited consistently since the 1990̢۪s. In 2008 she was awarded the Abbey Fellowship for the British School in Rome, which engendered the creation of a sublime body of work of great maturity.