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Current Exhibitions Future Exhibitions Back to Exhibitions )
Katarina Maksimovic, The Bridge in Mostar, n.d. Oil on board, 15 5/16 x 15 3/8. Collection of Svetislava Vukelja, Tyler.
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Katarina Maksimovic ('Maxi') Vukelja Anderson, Bird, 2000. Acrylic on paper, 21 x 17 inches. Collection of the artist, Tyler
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Katarina Maksimovic, Wheatfield, c. 1960–1970. Oil on wood panel, 13.25 x 7.5 inches.
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Katarina Maksimovic Vukelja Anderson, Autumn Landscape, 2004. Acrylic on canvasboard, 8 x 10 inches.
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Svetislava Vukelja, Poppy Field, 2000. Oil on canvasboard, 5.5 x 7.5 inches.
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Svetislava Vukelja, The City (Brussels), 1966. Oil on canvas, 13 x 16.25 inches.
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Mothers & Daughters: Three Generations of Artists May 5–June 26, 2005 
This exhibition would not have been organized if it were not for Svetislava Vukelja's (affectionately known as Sasha or "Dr. V" in Tyler) memories of herself as a young girl with her mother Katarina Maksimovic. Her memories are a poignant testimony of diaspora unleashed by the political torrents of the 20th century. Theirs was the experience of dislocation and emigration from Yugoslavia to the United States. As with countless numbers of people the communists persecuted, Sasha's father was put under house arrest and was never able to leave the country. It was her mother Katarina and young Sasha who, in their second attempt, succeeded in escaping to Brussels and finally to New York. The incredible threads of fate and fortune (miracle perhaps), suffering and toil, and hard work and hope that weave the fabric of their saga need to be recounted elsewhere. After she fled communist persecution, Sasha's mother Katarina painted obsessively on almost every conceivable support she could find—paper, cardboard, pieces of leather, Plexiglas, Masonite, etc. Her paintings, which are astonishingly varied in their style and subject matter, have deep emotional roots in the experience of her exodus and her struggles after reaching America. They are often tinged with nostalgia for the old country as in The Bridge in Mostar shown here, which the artist painted from memory. The bridge is a symbolic landmark in Yugoslavia, destroyed during the war, but recently rebuilt in an international conservation effort led by the United States. Sasha, too, digs deep into her turbulent current of experience, as well as her professional career as an oncologist (which keeps her in close proximity to cancer patients and their sufferings) and her role as a mother, to create both bold, strong sculpture and intimate-scale paintings. Her bronze figures display a wonderful sense of spontaneity and imagination that viewers are certain to enjoy and appreciate. Sasha's daughter, Maxi, carries the family's maternal tradition through both her full name—Katarina Maksimovic Vukelja Anderson—and her art, which shows the beginnings of a future yet to tell. Living in a family committed to artistic creativity and surrounded by her mother's and maternal grandmother's artworks, she expresses herself with confidence in paint and other media. She creates images in a manner that is uninhibited and innocent, yet distinctly representational and action-oriented. Her works are charming, and we anticipate that she will continue to create and refine her style as she matures as an artist. It is a pleasure to present the three artists together in the exhibition that celebrates family and a legacy of artistic expression handed down through generations. |