Lidija Delić
Born in Nikšić, Montenegro in 1986. Lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia. She earned her PhD at the Multimedia Art Department, University of Arts in Belgrade, in 2015. Graduated at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Department of Painting, in 2010. She is a co-founding member of U10 art space in Belgrade, working on managing exhibitions and events.
In 2019, Lidija was at Artist-in-Residence program organized by Balkan Projects and Swiss Institute in New York.
Representative of Montenegro at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2022.
Currently works at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade as an assistant professor.
My work speaks about the 21st century, about the present we inhabit, and it is thematically connected to the environmental crisis. The works are created in the mediums of painting, video and/or installation. Also, the space in which I display my works becomes an important part of rounding off the entire work process, because I shape them conceptually and structurally. My works open with multiple perspectives and interpretations, introducing the viewer to a permeable, layered world that refuses to be contained within clear and defined boundaries.
In my practice, I try to explore new forms of coexistence of nature and civilization in the brave new world, shifting between post-apocalyptic and utopian narratives. Often in my work I tend to play with traditional representations of nature and its new forms, and I try to contribute with new artistic ideas about the role of nature in human existence.
In my work, I am very interested in trying to explore and present the landscape (a place), often inhabited by architectural objects built in the international style from the modernist period of social utopias, and which have been changed in one way or another over time. To us, who are somewhat used to similar scenes and coexistence with ruins in our everyday environment, these images do not reveal much at first glance. However, I allow my paintings to be often contradictory and ambiguous, without directly revealing their meanings.
In my latest landscapes, I avoid the direct representation of the human figure, (the series of paintings Not All of Paradise Is Lost, which I presented at the Venice Biennale 2022, https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/not-all-of-paradise-is-lost/), however there is an echo of human presence. These are scenes that I present quietly, I speak about the processes of decay and transformation, oscillations, and instead of scenes of mass fires or some similar Hollywood apocalyptic images, I offer a slow, somewhat boring image of metamorphosis, which seems to me to be ongoing today.
For the past few years, nature has various manifestations in my works, and I often present it as a cultivated, arranged garden, nature that stands in relation to and depends on man. For example, during my residency in New York, where I spent three months in 2019, I chose to thematically deal with a specific garden with glass panels, located at the very center of Manhattan, in the office building of the Ford Foundation, which employs a large number of people and whose offices face the atrium of the building, and therein lies the paradox. Here, nature is arranged to its utmost, fully adapted to man, with printed notes on how we should treat it in order to experience and consume it in the correct way, as if it would not exist there if there was no man, which is absurd. I presented this through a series of paintings and video art works called Still, Life, which I exhibited in the ALBA gallery in Vienna in 2023 1.
I also tried to play with those questions later in my works, because they are still very interesting to me, the dissonance and absurdity of the nature-man-city relationship. Also, in this series of works and in some of the previous ones 2, I tried to focus my view on the daily life of human existence in ephemeral details, vegetation, macro-views and micro-narratives that can be lost in a moment. The results are most often shown through a series of paintings of delicate atmosphere and dreamlike balance between the natural world and the process of collapse and decay, the living and inanimate, connected in a poetic mixture filled with suggestions and echoes of current and future ecologies.
Selected works: A long time, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 3; Time of Risk, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 4; A moment ago, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 5; Take your time 6; A view from an office 7; With luck, there_ll be no more dreams II 8; Silence 9; Observing the plants 10; Going nowhere 11; Live long and forever II 12; In a Silent Way 13.
1
See:
https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/not-all-of-paradise-is-lost/.
2
https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/still-life.
3
Image: Lidija Delić, A long time, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022.
4
Image:Lidija Delić, Time of Risk, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
5
Image: Lidija Delić, A moment ago, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
6
Image: Lidija Delić, Take your time, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
7
Image: Lidija Delić, A view from an office, Oil on linen, 150x180cm, 2020
8
Image: Lidija Delić, With luck, there_ll be no more dreams II,
270x180cm, 2021
9
Image: Lidija Delić, Silence, Oil-on-canvas, 110x150cm
10
Image: Lidija Delić, Observing the plants, Oil on canvas,
260 x 150 cm, 2023
11
Image: Lidija Delić, Going nowhere, series of 6 paintings,
41x31 cm each, Oil on canvas and epoxy resin, 2024
12
Image: Lidija Delić, Live long and forever II, 40 x 30 cm, 2022
13
Image: Lidija Delić, In a Silent Way, intallation view, Oil on canvas and plexi box_bench, 40 x 30 cm, 2023
Rođena u Nikšiću, Crna Gora 1986. Živi i radi u Beogradu, Srbija. Doktorirala je na Multimedijalnoj umetnosti Univerziteta umetnosti u Beogradu 2015. Diplomirala na Fakultetu likovnih umetnosti u Beogradu, odsek slikarstvo, 2010. Suosnivačica je umetničkog prostora U10 u Beogradu, radi na vođenju izložbi i događaja. Lidija je 2019. bila na Artist-in-Residence programu u organizaciji Balkan Projects i Sviss Instituta u Njujorku. Predstavnik Crne Gore na 59. međunarodnoj izložbi umjetnosti Venecijanskog bijenala 2022. Trenutno radi na Fakultetu likovnih umetnosti u Beogradu kao docent.
Moj rad govori o 21. veku, o sadašnjosti u kojoj živimo, a tematski su povezani sa ekološkom krizom. Radovi nastaju u mediju slikarstva, videa i/ili instalacije. Takođe, prostor u kome prikazujem radove postaje važan deo zaokruživanja celokupnog procesa rada jer time ih konceptualno i strukturalno finalno oblikujem. Moji radovi se otvaraju višestrukim perspektivama i interpretacijama uvodeći posmatrača u propustan, slojevit svet koji ne pristaje da bude sveden u jasne i definisane granice.
U svojoj praksi pokušavam da istražim nove oblike koegzistencije prirode i civilizacije u novom hrabrom svetu, krećući se između post apokaliptičkih i utopijskih narativa. Često u radu težim da se igram sa tradicionalnim prikazima prirode i njegovim novim oblicima, i pokušavam da doprinesem novim umetničkim idejama o ulozi prirode za čovečanstvo.
Veoma sam zainteresovana da u radu pokušam da istražim i predstavim pejzaž (neko mesto), koji neretko nastanjuju arhitektonski objekti izgrađeni u internacionalnom stilu iz modernističkog perioda društvenih utopija, a koji su na ovaj ili onaj način izmenjeni tokom vremena. Nama, koji smo u neku ruku, naviknuti na slične prizore i suživot sa ruševinama u svakodnevnom okruženju ove slike na prvi pogled ne otkrivaju puno. Ipak ostavljam da moje slike budu i često kontradiktorne i dvosmislene, ne otkrivajući neposredno njihova značenja.
U svojim poslednjim slikama prirode izbegavam direktno prikazivanje ljudske figure, (serija slika Svaki raj nije izgubljen, koje sam prikazala na Venecijanskom bijenalu 2022 1, međutim čovekovo prisustvo je zastupljeno poput eha. To su prizori koje predstavljam tiho, govorim o procesima raspadanja i transformacije, oscilacijama, i umesto scena masovnih požara ili nekih sličnih holivudskih apokaliptičnih slika, ja nudim jednu sporu, pomalo dosadnu, sliku metamorfoze, koja je čini mi se danas u toku.
Tokom poslednjh nekoliko godina, u mojim radovima priroda ima različite manifestacije, i nju često predstavljam kao kultivisan, uređen vrt, prirodu koja tako stoji u odnosu na i u zavisnosti od čoveka. Na primer, na rezidenciji u Njujorku, gde sam provela tri meseca 2019. godine, odabrala sam da se tematski pozabavim jednom specifičnom zastakljenom baštom, koja se nalazi u samom centru Menhetna, u poslovnoj zgradi Ford Fondacije, u kome je zaposlen veliki broj ljudi a čije kancelarije su okrenute ka atrijumu zgrade, i u tome leži paradoks. Ovde je priroda najviše uređena, u potpunosti prilagođena čoveku, sa štampanim napomenama kako treba da se odnosimo prema njoj da bi je doživeli i konzumirali na ispravan način, kao da ona ne bi tu postojala da nema čoveka, što je apsurdno. To sam predstavila kroz seriju slika i video radova pod nazivom Still, life, čiju izložbu sam imala u galeriji ALBA u Beču 2023. godine 2.
I kasnije u radovim pokušala sam da se poigram sa tim pitanjima, koji su mi i dalje vrlo interesantna, disonatnošću i apsurdom odnosa priroda-čovek-grad.
Takođe, u ovoj seriji radova a i u nekim od prethodnih (https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/with-luck-therell-be-no-more-dreams/), pokušala sam da usmerim svoj pogled na svakodnevnicu humane egzistencije u efemernim detaljima, vegetaciji, makro-vizurama i mikro-narativima koji već u narednom trenutku mogu biti izgubljeni. Rezultati su najčešće prikazani kroz seriju slika delikatne atmosfere i snolike ravnoteže između prirodnog sveta i procesa kolapsa i propadanja, živog i neživog, povezanih u poetskoj mešavini ispunjenoj sugestijama i odjecima sadašnjih i budućih ekologija.
Izabrani radovi: A long time, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 3; Time of Risk, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 4; A moment ago, Oil on linen, 150 x 180cm, 2022 5; Take your time 6; A view from an office 7; With luck, there_ll be no more dreams II 8; Silence 9; Observing the plants 10; Going nowhere 11; Live long and forever II 12; In a Silent Way 13.
1
https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/not-all-of-paradise-is-lost/.
2
https://lidijadelic.com/portfolio/still-life.
3
Slika: Lidija Delić, A long time, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022.
4
Slika:Lidija Delić, Time of Risk, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
5
Slika: Lidija Delić, A moment ago, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
6
Slika: Lidija Delić, Take your time, Oil on linen,
150 x 180cm, 2022
7
Slika: Lidija Delić, A view from an office, Oil on linen,
150x180cm, 2020
8
Slika: Lidija Delić, With luck, there_ll be no more dreams II,
270x180cm, 2021
9
10
Slika: Lidija Delić, Observing the plants, Oil on canvas,
260 x 150 cm, 2023
11
Slika: Lidija Delić, Going nowhere, series of 6 paintings,
41x31 cm each, Oil on canvas and epoxy resin, 2024,
12
Slika: Lidija Delić, Live long and forever II, 40 x 30 cm, 2022
13
Slika: Lidija Delić, In a Silent Way, intallation view, Oil on canvas and plexi box_bench, 40 x 30 cm, 2023
