Moving boundaries and stepping into the infinite – The creative work of Milena Mijović Durutović represents a new form of thinking and perceiving. While scanning her epoch, the artist managed to focus her vision and channel her active creative power into a spiritual atmosphere with her blue, monochromatic installations and paintings.

“Contemporariness is, then, a singular relationship with one’s own time, which adheres to it and, at the same time, keeps a distance from it. More precisely, it is that relationship with time that adheres to it, through a disjunction and an anachronism. Those who communicate with the epoch all too well, who are perfectly aligned with it, are not contemporaneous, and cannot perceive the epoch or focus their gaze upon it.” Through installation as a new artistic practice, Milena emphasises space, working with the time dimension, or more accurately – the present moment, actuality and presence. In the words of Rosalind Krauss, installation is specified by its spatial location, and therefore differs from the traditional sculpture, defined as a symbolic location, and from modern sculpture, which makes for an idealistic location, and which she defines as “both landscape and architecture”. By relying on a single dominant colour in her works, the artist conveys her own audacity and non-conformism to non-interest, alongside a clear separation from familiar forms. Her use of intensive colours – pronounced blues – may be interpreted as an attempt to deliver the observer from the process of thought, and immerse them into the endless blue vastness and cosmic rhythms. The artist has a close relationship with the concepts of the unexplored, undefined, the cosmos, mysticism, as well as Eastern religions, which she weaves into her works. They seem to be swift productions, as if containing the expression of a child’s drawing, which is organically free from excessive decoration and utilitarianism. In his experiment entitled “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, Wassily Kandinsky discusses the artist and creation, arguing that the artist can only create true art from an “inner need”, while moving up the spiritual pyramid, towards the top (creation as a spiritual process). The artist understood this concept and applied it to her work, while creating deeply reduced and stylised forms that she rendered into a symbol, a sign, which is ever-precise and accurate.

A new sensitivity – Through perfect reductionism, the artist seeks to form a new sensitivity as an amalgam of morality and aesthetics, which does not seek to be likable, but to engage the audience in a new interpretation of the work of art. The open work is typical of artistic research and refers to an array of different interpretations, which might depend on the level of education, emotional engagement, cultural and social heritage, or simply the observer’s taste. Quite skilfully, Milena captures the metaphysical space as the originator of ideas, and reduces her work to an act of intuition. And it is for that very reason that her kinetic blue forms automatically mesmerise the observer. Originality and uniqueness is a task that the artist seems to impose upon herself, and consequently upon the observer. In affirming a different modern creative expression, she throws herself in a battle with materials, thereby engaging in strengthening her personal capacities. Her creative curiosity led her to different phases and experiments with techniques and materials (soil, pigment, straw, clay, wire). In terms of ideas and orientation, her artistic expression is close to Fauvism and Colour Field Painting, where paintings are reduced to the coloured surface and the vibration of the colour on the surface of the canvas. Thereby, the creative act becomes abstract and associative, given meaning by the author, and the observer is an actor that provides it with a new meaning and interpretation. Through this exhibition, Milena demonstrates the zenith of her creative drive, in which she reduces all artistic elements, and shifts her focus from the form to the inner, spiritual content of the painting. The artist’s works are a means of stepping away from the standardised, established forms, and an attempt to return to herself, to reconnect with nature, while not relinquishing technology and new media. She creates new forms of artistic expression, thereby moving boundaries as defined by tradition, and significantly changing the contextualisation and reception of 21st century art.

International Klein Blue – IKB – In an effort to express the fullness of specific artistic ideas, the artist found an ideal form of expression by using a shade of blue dubbed “the international royal blue”. Blue is the only colour beyond dimensions, which is why it gains the value of matter, space, and light. The idea of reducing painting to a singular colour is a great challenge, as it shifts the focus to the essence, to colour, which moves on a spectrum ranging from ultramarine to the blue pigment. The Klein Blue carries a different symbolic meaning, related to spirituality, dignity, infinity and contemplation. It was common in various artistic epochs as the dominant colour (from the blue glazed brick in the Ishtar Gate in the Neo-Babylonian Art, to Giotto’s pronounced blue backdrops in Proto Renaissance, and Picasso’s blue phase or Yves Klein’s works). In her key “blue phase”, Milena is attempting to define space, in which she sets the kinetic installation of the paintings, which are always a reflection of long and meaningful contemplation. In her use of pure colour, the pigment, she aims to express “pure ideas”, and therefore conceptually approaches minimalistic art. In addition to the air of transparency they convey, the paintings are positioned at a certain distance from the wall so as to allude to their spatial indeterminacy. The artist renounces association with traditional apprehension of painting, and introduces new means of expression. The paintings are dominated by layered factures, which carry a rich tonality. One can sense a certain experience in painting. Following a process of purification and reduction, this experience comes down to colour as the dominant element, alongside the directness of the strikes, a clear construction and a strong colouristic echo. It is with this discovery that the artist enters a phase of pure colour, and follows a path of conveying her most intimate thoughts and feelings.

The artist’s responsibility – Milena Mijović Durutović secured her position in the fine arts scene through an unusual creative drive and credible artistic solutions. The ostensible ease and nonchalance of her expression conceals a deep and long experience. The act of creation of every new piece of art is a unique event, or as Derrida would say – “there is nothing outside the text”. The artist paints and creates with a special form of energy, which transforms all associative elements and lifts them to new, autonomous dimensions. Milena is a synonym for a free flow, with insistence on the idea and the inner logics of a piece of art. Her creative work is detached from mimetic patterns, and reflects a non-restrained gesture, with a gentle balance between force and tenderness. The artist deals with contexts: she amends, models, combines the old with the new contextual definitions, and adds a sort of an “aura, aureole, a magical ability to be the centre of creation of unique, sublime and refined aesthetic experiences” to her works. Her work is a continuous appeal not to forget the light, the blue, the cosmic vastness, and to absorb the voice of the nature and relinquish decay. “The wisdom of an artist is not an antique virtue, still less a discourse of mediocrity, but on the contrary that moral knowing, that discerning sharpness which enables him to distinguish meaning and truth.” Creative energy, virtue and social engagement, which shapes the artist’s idea, expresses her need to oppose the dark and negation, and to channel the positivity of her creative efforts to indicate the artist’s responsibility in all aspects of their work and efforts. The artist uses fluid contexts to sensitise the observer and their introspection, placing them in an exalted, meditative space of encouraging silence.