KATARINA ALI - Yugoslavia

CONTACTS : katarina.alivojvodic@gmail.com

Jelena

China on paper 35 x 70 cm

Water and fire

oil on canvas board 20 x 60 cm

The Annunciation

oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm

The riddle

pencil on cardstock

Terpsichore

Vague sighs

oil on canvas cm 50 x 70

oil on canvas cm 40 x 60

Her Biography and CV

Katarina Ali was born in 1973 in Zemun, Yugoslavia.
In 1993 she graduated in Industrial Design from the Belgrade School of Design, and in 1999 she graduated in Graphic Design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade.
At the same time, she attended private lessons in the art studios of masters such as Acc. Pavle Nik, Zeljko Djurovic, Zeljko Tonsic, where she acquired skills in painting, sculpture, drawing and engraving.
The artist has taken part in numerous group exhibitions and events in Italy and Yugoslavia. She won first prize in a drawing competition organized by the “B. Stamenkovic” gallery in Belgrade. Her works are held in private collections in Serbia, Italy, France, Spain and Greece.

Among her solo exhibitions we recall those at:

1999 “Akord” Gallery, Belgrade (Yugoslavia)
1999 “Hadzi Ruvim” Gallery, Lajkovac (Yugoslavia)
2001 Pro Loco “Artemisia”, Castroreale
2001 Municipal Gallery, Milazzo
2002 “Helios” Gallery, Rome
2002 at the “Green Manors” exhibition space, Castroreale
2004 “Il Gabbiano” Gallery, Messina
2005 “Italarte” Gallery, Rome
The artist has lived in Italy since 2000; since 2001 she has run a school of painting and drawing.

The Review

Floating atmospheres and magical visions

Dreamlike, fairy-tale atmospheres—“Gothic-tinged” and mindful of Pre-Raphaelite art—pervade the works of the young Yugoslav artist Katarina Ali.
Her paintings are steeped in a magical, floating and silent dimension, ethereal and sensual.
Small sparkling lights, like fireflies, accompany Katarina’s figures, lighting the path that leads them in search of their own destiny.
The artist’s poetics are contained in a text by the poet and writer (as well as diplomat and ambassador) Jovan Ducic, “The Treasure of Tsar Radovan””. Ducic, influenced by the French Parnassians and Symbolists, wrote poems and lyrical prose through which he introduced into Serbian literary production a taste for “art for art’s sake”.
In particular, an excerpt from the text that speaks of Tsar Radovan allows us to immerse ourselves in the magical atmosphere of Katarina’s works:
“…Moses spoke of it when he followed the word of God, and Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon, and Columbus when he entrusted his sails to the wind that carried him to a land he knew nothing about. This treasure is also sought by the astronomer who watches the starry clouds, and the botanist who seeks the secret of fertilization in the heart of a little flower, and the priest who restores faith in the hearts of unbelievers. All people seek, because all are mad. The blood of all has infected Tsar Radovan who lives in grass and water, a mighty tsar who passes through the sky like a cloud laden with lightning and passes through the sea like a ship that burns…”.
Katarina’s images are rich in symbolic references. Music is imprisoned in the instruments played by beings that are a blend of men, fairies and elves. The images that result are evocations that taste of dream and myth, gentle and light, stylistically very elegant and refined.
Iridescent clouds skimming the ground surround the protagonists of the 2006 diptych, in which two flautists stand within a medieval landscape, accompanied by colorful tropical fish, in a natural setting where water, sky and earth merge.
The evocative power of music is also present in other works, where there is almost always a young woman playing a wind instrument or a kind of mandolin, immersed in a rarefied atmosphere and wrapped in clouds. Woman is always the protagonist in Katarina’s works: a woman who is, in turn, sorceress, Salome, Venus or fairy, always placed in the foreground and surrounded by an aura of mystery. A woman accompanied by tiny sparks, who reveals herself before our eyes, yet whom we will never fully know.
The grace and symbolism of certain figures hint at Art Nouveau and Déco reminiscences, even if the strength of Katarina’s figures is far from a depiction of beauty for its own sake. The bond with nature, with the sky and with water—usually representing the Danube River, dear to her—makes her characters a link between our world and an ideal, thrilling one, a world able to envelop our senses and carry us off in ecstasy, far from the reality that surrounds us and often saddens us.
But what are Katarina’s characters seeking? Is their flute perhaps a call toward someone or something? Indeed, they seem to want to evoke something greater; perhaps they too are seeking the treasure of Tsar Radovan. What is certain is that her paintings are fantastic visions capable of carrying us far away in time and space.
In the landscapes, nature is the undisputed protagonist and the depictions become more real, without losing the charm that surrounds the other works.

Cinzia Folcarelli

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