10 Questions with Sonja Janjic

Sonja Janjic is a visual artist born in Serbia. Her passion for printmaking and analog photography can be seen in her further work, including mixed media, graphic design, motion art, and contemporary photography. In this series of digital collages, she strives to create a stronger sense of disharmony we all feel due to social and ecological problems by visually decomposing our everyday sights as a correlation to our behavior in real life. She hopes her artwork will raise awareness and give the observer a feeling of compassion and hope while we’re all creating a better future.

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ARTIST STATEMENT

Sonja Janjic is a visual artist born in Serbia, with a BA in Applied arts, and graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 2021. From the beginning of her studies, she fell in love with printmaking, analog collages, and photography, which took her on a journey exploring digital art and graphic design, her other passion. She soon started getting a huge interest in typography, lettering, and contemporary fine art. The influences of her love for traditional techniques can be seen in her later work, and she likes to combine more techniques, believing that they complement one another. She had the opportunity to be a member of various international group projects and exhibitions in all the art mediums she works with.

Messages from the next world | Project Description

Messages from the next world is a series of digital collages based on photography, which Sonja manually decomposes using various techniques and later blends and overlays, creating chaotic yet peaceful, visually controlled sceneries. “When one photograph overlays another, it creates even more sense of spatial depth and the things echoing inside of it”, she says. Photographs used are mostly her travel sights and results of exploring usually abandoned quarters or small towns in Serbia that are completely industrially inactive, polluted, and rarely inhabited by the younger population, but screaming with their own emotion intensely. These sensations that they are radiating with, she likes to wrap with synthetic overlays. Her goal is to make the observer feel these energies, the kind of emotion that we awake when we destroy something holy to us. “These are”, she claims, “sometimes the things that we cannot really control since an average individual is not a world’s grand polluter and doesn’t have the power to protect cultural goods in our country (referring to the buildings I captured and used, we all feel that huge nostalgia and hopelessly wish to reactivate and nourish them, but have no power in our hands). We are all bombed with bad ecological news daily, and while doing our best, sometimes it seems like it’s only getting worse, especially here. So yes, my goal is to raise awareness by evoking strong emotions to create positive change. Still, while being surrounded by so many individuals with the same perception and worries, I kinda wanted to give them a “hug” with my artwork, knowing that we, the young ones really value our cultural goods and that we are all aware of the problem and feel stuck sometimes, but need to reunite to solve it. Each little step is a change for the better. By protecting our environment, we also protect our psyche, creating a sense of love and gratitude for our surroundings, as well as each other.”

INTERVIEW

First, tell us a little about your background and studies. What kind of education or training helped you develop your approach to art?

Studies at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade have helped me a lot with broadening my views about everything, as well as my working life, meeting new people, and exchanging views. When I enrolled in Graphic Design, my work was way more prominent in printmaking, which gave me a lot of good opportunities for my personal career. While being a member of various group projects, I met so many fascinating people and learned so much from them. Abstract art and all the outcomes that could happen from a single plate of aquatint or linocut and combinations, the overlapping textures, and high contrasts completely absorbed me. We also had analog photography in the first year, only using black and white film, which also intrigued me; all the boundaries you have while creating a storytelling image make you think a lot more before shooting. Reading about various other topics was my huge addiction - first, the artist interviews and stories where you could get such a beautiful poetical background hiding behind my favorite artworks. Later during my studies, I started working with cinematographers and fell in love with psychological/surrealist movies and video art. We also had that small workshop in Budapest concerning Intermedia, and I felt like I’d entered a completely different world. Our classical studies were not the same thing anymore. Reading about the theory behind it was my new obsession when you can mid-feel an amazing piece, and you feel all those chills, only to later discover further from the actual words of an artist.

You are a versatile multidisciplinary artist, but what is your preferred medium of choice, the one you will always come back to? 

Definitely photography. It can be seen in almost all my artwork, including commercial ones. Discovering that it can be combined with other non-figurative techniques (mostly typography) was a huge inspiration for me. Currently, I’m learning more about video editing, so I think the same influences will be seen in my later work.

And what is your aim as an artist? What would you like the public to get away from your work?

My goal is to awaken strong feelings and spread currently-important messages. I leave the other thoughts, feelings, and imagination to the observer. I would like for everyone to get away with what they want and feel, as long as it makes them think and change for the better.

Let’s talk about your creative process. What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

I like to think creatively before and while photographing. The idea kind of awakes when I see the inspiring surroundings. The blending process is also a loving challenge since I usually use two photographs completely alike each other. By combining solid architectural forms with fluid, mild shapes, I like to explore the boundaries of these opposites mixed. I try to convey my perception, the atmosphere I feel in each town visited with the same sensation on the actual artwork, even though not all of them are titled with the town’s name.
I also have to say, the whole decomposing process was a happy accident. During my studies-mess, I left some of my photographs in a small box under the bathroom sink, only to take them out maybe a year later and find them all glued together. I tried to gently separate them one by one, and it didn’t always work; however, it did leave some amazing textures. The nature of the photo paper allows colors, while treated externally, to melt and wash off with a kind of a bubbly look. Also, some had matte plastification on top, which can be seen as a plastic-like texture in some of my work. Now, I do the same thing, but on purpose, I intuitively choose where I want to rip it and how the color overflow will happen. 

In your series “Messages from the next world,” you work with digital collages. Where do you get your inspiration from? 

Since it is a series that I’ve almost been working on during my whole studies, the creative process has been changing continuously. Joseph Koudelka, Andrew Kertesz, Man Ray, and the other 20th century photographers, as well as metaphysical artists Georgio de Chirico and Ana Kapor, daughter of our famous writer Momo Kapor, had a huge influence on my photography and atmosphere of these echoing empty spaces. Gerard Richter’s series of overpainted photographs also were a huge inspiration, as well as movies from my favorite directors, Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Maya Deren, and especially Jean-Michelle Folon’s artwork in William Klein’s movie “Who are you Polly Maggoo?”. Later, Ahn Sang-Soo, probably my favorite graphic designer, became my huge inspiration for video art, and his well-known Hangul typeface still has an influence on my circular, pattern-like lettering.

About the series, your statement says you create a sense of disharmony with your work, but you also “hope for her artwork to raise awareness and give the observer a feeling of compassion and hope, while we’re all creating a better future.” How do you balance those two different feelings? 

I like the idea of the public getting a sense of calmness and comfort by seeing my artwork, which is why I like keeping it subtle and unobtrusive. I feel like nowadays, a lot of people tend to get stuck and overwhelmed with all the random information and bad news around us. Also, there is still a lot of judgment around, and it does nothing but block people from being authentic with all of their thoughts and feelings, which is a key to improvement. Sometimes the older generations tend to suspect the amount of awareness in the youth, which I try to break, it is mostly false. That was partly my aim with the whole title, and I also try to evoke a sense of unity by using locally familiar motives. I would love for anyone to take away some feeling of encouragement and motivation by seeing that we’re all together, accepting each other without age and gender boundaries, and doing everything to solve the problem. But I do try to create discomfort in our precious ones who think that recycling is just wasting time.

At the same time, do you think art can help people find a balance between their fears and the surrounding world? Did it help you find your own balance?  

Yes, I believe that art is a powerful communication tool, and the ones who already feel discomfort might find peace and relief in it, knowing they are not the only ones feeling the same way. I believe the core of that balance, losing a sense of fear and starting progress lies in positive emotions like motivation, compassion, and gratitude. I believe art is giving one step forward each day towards general cultural and psychological improvement. It also makes everything more engaging, which helps a lot with the general raise of awareness. Creativity really does move the world. And, of course, it did help a lot on my own path too.

Let’s talk about the future. What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

Of course, I’m currently working hard, so I can be a better candidate for my MA degree scholarship. Postgraduate studies abroad have been my dream from the beginning. I also began my second series, a bit different and concerning a wider range of topics. My interests in intermedia are still very high, so I’m working on improving my knowledge and skills, and meeting artists who share the same interest helps me a lot. I’m also a huge music lover, both dancing and singing, I’m currently working with musicians a lot as well as attending classes, which is my great pleasure. Working as a visual artist is still my preoccupation, but I believe all my other interests will combine in some sort of way with time.

What do you hope to accomplish this year, both in terms of career goals and personal life? 

I’m working on organizing my solo exhibition, and I’m looking forward to a couple of art collaborations. I hope my working life continues growing well, as it did by now. I hope to improve my software skills as well. As for my personal life, I’m working on improving my language skills (now highly focused on Spanish), and attending some Erasmus projects that help me travel and meet amazing people from all over Europe.

Finally, any shows, galleries, or publications where our readers can find your work?  

Thank you for asking. Besides a couple of local museums where my artwork is a part of the collection, I have the honor of being a participant in two big projects that are currently organizing traveling exhibitions. Project “Memento Mori”, organized by Sin Rumbo Fijo, a collective of contemporary printmakers, has been exhibited in Prague, Barcelona, and Mexico City. It will soon be exhibited here in Belgrade too. I’m a part of Mrs. Leposava Milosevic Sibinovic’s “Parchment concertina” that had a lot of exhibitions in Europe and Mexico; this summer, our work was exhibited in Budva, Montenegro. I also had an online exhibition of “Messages from the next world” last year, organized by Cista arts. It can still be found on their website. I’m working on organizing exhibitions and more projects, so all the readers are very welcome to follow my Instagram, where I’m most active and post every update. Thank you for your interest and time once again.