PERIPHERIES: NEW WORK BY Dragana Crnjak

In her newest series of paintings and drawings, PERIPHERIES, Dragana Crnjak cites her philosophy on mark-making, as she traces fragmented architectural and natural landscapes to suggest states or spaces in flux. Those stages and forms residual of still being shaped, built or erased connote one’s peripheral vision, and the “loose perceptions of the fleeting moments that leave an undefined impression.” Crnjak’s trained interest is formal, as these works boast a certain play in the “proximities between the shapes and suggested formations” in pertinence to positive and negative space. Although abstract and conceptual in nature, these works present the impression of hazy, aerial island waterscapes imbued with a geometric appeal.
 
Dragana Crnjak is a Serbian-American artist born in former Yugoslavia. She received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, and her BA in the same concentration from the Myers School of Art at the University of Akron, OH. She is a recipient of Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards in visual art for 2008, 2011, 2015, Research Professorship from Youngstown State University, and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship in drawing. She previously taught art at The University of Virginia and The Cleveland Institute of Art. She is currently Associate Professor at Youngstown State University, Ohio, teaching painting and drawing.