ATHENS, Ga. – An exhibition of the work of Tanja Softic’, titled “Graphia,” will run from March 2 through March 26 at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art Main Gallery. A public lecture by the artist will be held on Tues., March 2 at 5:30 p.m. with a reception to follow. All events are free and open to the public.
Softic’ was a graduate student in the United States when war broke out in her homeland of Bosnia. After her hometown was bombed and her personal belongings were lost, questions of life and death, nature and shelter became significant themes in her work. She describes her prints as reflecting both “the traditional visual arts of [her] native Bosnia and Herzegovina” and the experience of living in postmodern America. Softic’ appears to be using her art as a means of conveying this aesthetic and cultural dichotomy.
The artist begins with a milky wash of color on the paper, then builds upon the ground with layers of abstract patterns, architectural renderings, medical and botanical illustrations. “She takes us to a place where a sweet potato and its root system is comparable to a human heart and its blood vessels, and an unfolding flower has its equivalents in the symmetry of a woman’s reproductive organs,” explains art critic David Brickman.
Softic’ earned a B.F.A. from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina before immigrating to this country and completing an M.F.A. at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., in 1992. She is currently an associate professor of art at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Center for the Arts. Her work has been exhibited extensively in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
The Main Gallery is located in the Visual Arts Building on Jackson Street and is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., free of charge.
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NOTE TO EDITORS: Digital images of the work in the exhibit are available by calling 706/542-0069.