— born in 1963 in Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina, she graduated from Faculty of Cultural Studies in Cetinje (1986), specializing in the Conservation and Restoration of Paintings. As a scholarship recipient of the French government, she completed a specialization in Paris (1989-1990). She earned her Master’s in Visual Technology from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana (1992). A member of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro since 1998, she taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje, becoming a Full Professor in 2008. She served as Vice-Rector for Art at the University of Montenegro. From 2018 to 2022, she chaired the Council of the Center for Contemporary Art of Montenegro (now the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montenegro). Active as a visual artist since 1989, she works across mediums: drawing, painting, photography, environmental and wall installations, performance, and happenings. Her work has been shown in prestigious group exhibitions in France, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Croatia, Canada, the United States, North Macedonia, Spain and Poland, with solo exhibitions in Montenegro, Serbia, Italy, San Marino and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A recipient of several awards, her works are held in institutional and private collections worldwide. My artistic process involves an overlapping of investigative, experimental, and multidisciplinary approaches, through which I continuously develop certain themes and articulate them in cycles. It is a living, dynamic, whole where each cycle contains dozens of works created over several years, thematically and conceptually interconnected, overlapping, and building upon one another.

Inspiration and creative ideas are sparked by reflection on universal questions, which I translate visually into an exploration of the layered nature of human existence—as individuals and as part of society. This inquiry unfolds through the interplay of intuitive artistic methods with scientific, psychological, sociological, philosophical, occasionally metaphysical or theosophical domains of human knowledge. At its core, it is my personal, intimate world of questioning, seeking truth about myself and the world I inhabit.

Through ritualistically layered visual investigations, I produce dozens of sketches, notes, writings, and drawings. Experimentation with diverse materials and media allows me to explore how matter can express the immaterial. Works emerge either through gradual transformations and stratified plastic elements or as an impulse driven by momentary emotional states.

I express myself through drawing, painting, collage, photography, installation, and performance. Some works incorporate sound and scent to investigate multisensory artistic potential, while others adopt the character of happenings. Time and space play a vital role in all my works, conceptually, spiritually, and physically. Installations are conceived within specific spaces, and the works themselves often arise in situ, inspired by the environment.

The monochromatic cycle Searching for Light [Traganje za svjetlošću] (1995–2005) investigates the concept of Light as a metaphysical phenomenon. Using thick, texturally rich encaustic layers of black on white canvas and paper, accented with gold and red, it culminates in a wall installation where dissolving black wax evokes transience and meditations on eternity. Within this cycle, the happening Path to Light [Put ka svjetlosti] (2001)12 emerged, inspired by the legend of Our Lady of Rocks in Perast. This artistic intervention in the island’s Marian shrine subtly redirects focus to women’s inner worlds, their intimate self-connection, and the genesis of their roles within a heritage traditionally reserved for men through rituals like Fašinada.

The cycle Element Fire [Element Vatra] (2001–2006) examines fire as an ancient philosophical element. Symbolical meanings of fire—creative and destructive—are articulated through geometric forms (triangles, pyramids) in encaustic and gilding, dominated by intense red, orange, and yellow, compositionally unified with black.

The work Confession [Ispovijed] (2002)3, a pyramidal palimpsest-object, was initially conceived as a personal, intimate confession. After its partial destruction during an exhibition in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, it became a work in progress, reflecting questions of artistic interpretation, (self-)reflection, socio-anthropological contexts, and the relationship between private and public.

This cycle also includes Autoanalysis from a Temporal Distance [Autoanaliza sa vremenske distance] (IV Cetinje Biennale, 2002)456, addressing the recently concluded brutal war in Bosnia through the prism of a personal family narrative tied to maternal lineage and childhood in Bosnia. The installation constructs a space for evoking memories of safety and protection within the familial community (a mother’s embrace or a grandmother’s lap) continuously eroded by distorted and aggressive politics, culminating in war, national dissolution, and the traumatic severing of human bonds. This work seeks to animate and revitalize spaces of security through artistic means, creating corners for self-reflection and reclamation.

The happening A Coffee Cup Reading for Person X (Can You See Something?) [Šoljica kafe za osobu X (Ima li što?)] (2002)78 created with Biljana Keković for the IV Cetinje Biennale, ironically critiques the biennale’s enthusiastically proposed theme of “Reconstruction” in the painfull aftermath of the 1990s. Centered on the Balkan ritual of divining the future through coffee residues from a cup, the work questions the feasibility of “reconstruction” amid ideological shifts and the cultural, social, and political fallout of national collapse.

Cycles like Event Horizon [Horizont događaja] (2007–2012)91011 Duration-Disappearance- Duration [Trajanje-nestajanje-trajanje] (2012–2020)1213 and Inner Worlds [Unutrašnji svjetovi] (2020–2024)1415 delve into introspective themes, exploring existence and impermanence, life and death, and my position in a world of radical change and uncertainty. These works are artistic records of my inner world, contrasting the conscious and intuitive, deliberate and affective, through poetic and dramatic elements as expressive unveilings of being. The moment of confronting oneself—and all that self-discovery entails is central to understanding the world.

My practice as a whole represents a ceaseless artistic investigation of context, time, and space, interwoven with universal questions of freedom, hope, and spirituality.

Text written in collaboration with Ana Ivanović.


1Image: Nataša Durović, Path to Light, Gospa od Škrpjela (Our Lady of the Rocks Church), Perast, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Our Lady of the Rocks Church, Perast

2Image: Nataša Durović, Path to Light, Gospa od Škrpjela (Our Lady of the Rocks Church), Perast, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Our Lady of the Rocks Church, Perast.

3Image: Nataša Durović.]Image: Nataša Đurović, 2 Nataša Đurović, Confession - The Phenomenon of Light, St. Paul de Vence - Budva, 2002, ambient installation, encaustic and gilding on canvas, 250 x 180 x 180 cm, photo collage, 260 x 60 cm web. Courtesy of the artist.

4Image: Nataša Durović, Autoanalysis from a Temporal Distance, Cetinje Biennale, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Archive of Cetinje Biennale.

5Image: Nataša Durović, Autoanalysis from a Temporal Distance, Cetinje Biennale, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Archive of Cetinje Biennale.

6Image: Nataša Durović, Autoanalysis from a Temporal Distance, Cetinje Biennale, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Archive of Cetinje Biennale.

7Image: Nataša Durović, A Coffee Cup Reading for Person X: Can You See Something?, Cetinje Biennial, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Archive of the Cetinje Biennale.

8Image: Nataša Durović, A Coffee Cup Reading for Person X: Can You See Something?, Cetinje Biennial, 2002. Courtesy of the artist and Archive of the Cetinje Biennale.

9Image: Nataša Durović, From the series Event Horizon, 2007–2012. Courtesy of the artist

10Image: Nataša Durović, From the Event Horizon cycle, 2007–2012. Courtesy of the artist.

11Image: Nataša Durović, From the Event Horizon cycle, 2007–2012, charcoal, compressed charcoal, pencil, oil stick on paper, 70x100cm. Courtesy of the artist.

12Image: Nataša Durović, From the Duration–Disappearance–Duration cycle, 2012–2020, encaustic, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 70x100cm. Courtesy of the artist.

13Image: Nataša Durović, From the Inner Worlds cycle, India ink on canvas, 210x880cm, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.