April

44 | / When you view her paintings, those impressively large formats, lled with energy, broad strokes, you simply feel the liberation and openness of new horizons. Everything she addresses contains a note of mathematical precision, which can be concludedashavingcomefromher serious ten-year business career. That rare combination of the practical and the artistic in methods of workingand thinkingprovidedherwithuniqueness anda speci c placeunder the sun: shebelongs to Serbia, but simultaneously to the world, to Belgrade as well as NewYork, to business and thesophisticateduniverseof colours and forms. Her expression is abstract, and her most commonmotifs are psychological re ections, oftentransmittedthroughrecognisablethemes from nature: the sea, the sakura (cherry blossom), theSun. Reigning thereare sea fairies and waves, the laws of the samurai honour apply, the scent of the cherryblossoms of the Far East. She is rara avis, as an eminent art critic called her in the title of a reaction to her exhibition The Art of Peace: A rare bird among painters. She isa lady, anarduousworker anda ghter, wielding paintbrushes with which she “attacks” large canvases. “I’minspiredbypeople,”saysGordana, and people are equally inspired by her. That’s how her failed encounter with a small local gallery, where she wasn’t given a chance to present herself and her works, led her directly to the epicentre of contemporary art, Manhattan. Regardless of how absurd it might seem, the fact that she received a time slot to exhibit in New York opened the door for her present herself in her own city. The premiere took place at Singidunum Gallery in Knez Mihailova Street, which was preceded by an opening at another location: the Exhibition Hall of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It was a kind of pre-premiere in what is perhaps the most beautiful hall in Belgrade, which is on a par with the galleries of Manhattan. But her paintings aren’t static; they simply yearned tomove on, so her rst picture toured the entire world. During a visit to the home of a high-level Americandiplomat whose spouse was a collector from Japan, her attention was drawn to the picture actually called Rare Bird. “It’s so Zen,” was the lady collector’s rst comment, which awakened in Gordana a desire to later explore in the speci c direction of Zen-painting. The painting, together with its newowners, departed Belgrade bound for Seattle, Alaska and Beijing, foretelling the future fate of the painter herself. The career path of GordanaTomić, as well as themessages of her work, are perhaps best described by some of the titles of her exhibitions: Tracks of ComplexTemptations, For Belgrade Before New York, Real Sword, Cadence Colour, The Art of Peace, Sakura Will Blossom Again, All Seas Are mine. It is also interesting that this romantic soul, who is lled with respect for her Montenegrin roots, has chosen a Zen Buddhist to be her painting mentor. Gordanaalsodoesn’t nd it di cult toshift the limits thanks toher knowledgeof theeconomy, the eld in which she mastered, so she works with a team of various experts in corporations to launch art as a service, based on principles of art, HR and neuroscience. With her Art Parliament programme, she’s become an innovator in the eld of creative motivation for employees, as well as a local example of the sharing economy, in the way that she leases out artworks. She has long since “outgrown” the studio-balcony of her apartment where she once painted, and now she creates in a studio in Belgrade’s Bežanijska kosa neighbourhood. Those for whomNewYork is far away can see Gordana’s pictures in the ever-changing exhibits of her the showroom, the largest conference hall of New Belgrade’s Genex Apartments building. Oseka sa licem Meseca, akrilik na platnu, 2017 Tide with the face of the Moon, acrylic on canvas, 2017 Duh divlje trešnje Wild Cherry Ghost

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