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sire to later explore in the speci c direction of Zen-painting. The painting, together with its new owners, departed Belgrade bound for Se- attle, Alaska and Beijing, foretelling the future fate of the painter herself. The career path of Gordana Tomić, as well as the messages of her work, are perhaps best described by some of the titles of her exhibi- tions: Tracks of Complex Temptations, For Bel- grade 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 re- spect for her Montenegrin roots, has chosen a Zen Buddhist to be her painting mentor. Gordana also doesn’t nd it di cult to shift the limits thanks to her knowledge of the econ- omy, the eld in which she mastered, so she works with a team of various experts in cor- porations 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 motiva- tion 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 stu- dio-balcony of her apartment where she once painted, and now she creates in a studio in Belgrade’s Bežanijska kosa neighbourhood. Those for whom New York is far away can see Gordana’s pictures in the ever-changing ex- hibits of her the showroom, the largest con- ference hall of New Belgrade’s Genex Apart- ments building.
W hen you view her paintings, those impressively large for- mats, lled with energy, broad strokes, you simply feel the lib- eration and openness of new horizons. Everything she addresses contains a note of mathematical precision, which can be con- cluded as having come from her serious ten-year business career. That rare combination of the practical and the artistic in methods of work- ing and thinking provided her with uniqueness and a speci c place under the sun: she belongs to Serbia, but simultaneously to the world, to Belgrade as well as New York, to business and the sophisticated universe of colours and forms. Her expression is abstract, and her most common motifs are psychological re ections, often transmitted through recognisable themes from nature: the sea, the sakura (cherry blos- som), the Sun. Reigning there are sea fairies and waves, the laws of the samurai honour apply, the scent of the cherry blossoms 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 is a lady, an arduous worker and a ght- er, wielding paintbrushes with which she “at- tacks” large canvases. “I’m inspired by people,”says Gordana, 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 exhib- it in New York opened the door for her pres- ent herself in her own city. The premiere took place at Singidunum Gallery in Knez Mihailo- va Street, which was preceded by an opening at another location: the Exhibition Hall of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It was a kind of pre-pre- miere in what is perhaps the most beautiful hall in Belgrade, which is on a par with the gal- leries of Manhattan. But her paintings aren’t static; they simply yearned to move on, so her rst picture toured the entire world. During a visit to the home of a high-level American diplomat 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 de-
Duh divlje trešnje
Wild Cherry Ghost
Oseka sa licem Meseca , akrilik na platnu, 2017 Tide with the face of the Moon, acrylic on canvas, 2017
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