Mila Kostic

Composition in Blue 22 x 28

Composition in Yellow 36 x 18

Fragments 18 x 20

Mila Kostic | Biography

Artistic Statement: “Borders”

Our everyday life is a compound of private, social and political events: some are significant; some are hard to shake of, leaving a deep mark. Consciously and subconsciously, Inspirations are dreamt from those events and channeled into the work.

Not all border crossings elicit words of welcome; borders allow some to be on the inside, while forcing others to remain on the outside. This applies not only to territorial borders, but also to borders between identities, genders, ethnicities, classes, sexualities…borders between private and public, between “self” and “other”.

I thought that world was finally divided after Second World War: borders, people, countries, flowers, and roads. Current trends in politics around the world are telling me that I was mistaken; I lived half of my life in wrong conviction.

Just another day…. to survive, to live, to love, to eat, to work, politics, war, death, and to look in your destroyed life,…

My language is paint and canvas. I create words on canvas and then combine and shape my sentences by brush. As much as I want being in control of the making process, at some point the work piece gets a life of its own. I never know what I am getting to get at the end. Each painting becomes a surprise.

There is choice to carry the same elements throughout the series, using as a motif and metaphor, stretching it in every direction imaginable. Each element tells a story, a personal representation of relationships, dreams, hopes and struggle.

This work evolved from experimenting with lines and color, my focus is the process of painting. As canvas evolves, each step promises revelation or it is small reflection of the diversity of the living world and of the opinions either active or passive, that we have in how we live within and with that world. We are creating those borders.

It is also my journey trying to find out where are my borders. I lost my country; my friends, my home, my paintings, my inspiration. And now I am setting new borders in my life, which are being reflected and expressed in my works.