When I was a little girl I was sure I was born a writer. Then I painted a butterfly and saw an image of my adult life as a painter flashing before my eyes. I went to the living room and told my parents: "I am an artist now." I am a child of many places. I have learned that the world can fall apart, and that sometimes it is precisely then that you find yourself. 

 

What I am interested in is observing the world and how we experience it. Cryptic messages from the subconscious, subtle states of mind and soul that are hard to understand and decipher, a perceptive and phenomenological encounter with a world we constantly try to make sense of. Whether we want it or not, we are all immersed in a human experience that is confusing, fragile, vulnerable, scary and unpredictable. We live through our emotions, constantly trying to understand, grasp, and decipher them. That fragility of human existence, the encounter between the world outside and our inner, private life, connected by one thin thread, that is what I paint. 

 

My aim is to evoke states of reflection and initiation, to embody in my paintings growth as paradox: at once painful and transformational. My intention is to open spaces for reflection, both for myself and for others, by confronting the seen, the felt, and the confusing, like life itself. 

 

In the end, how does one feel one thing without, at the same time, feeling the exact opposite?

Ljubica Šćepović