Godina 2011

‘Godina’ is a painting by Dragan Ilić Di Vogo, though it is not dated, it appears to be painted with oil on canvas. There is a very smooth finish across the painting, the artist isn't really showing their hand. This smoothness contrasts with the surreal and dreamlike subject matter, a nude woman in a bizarre landscape adorned with colourful spheres and peculiar details. The woman is composed in an almost classical manner, the type you might see in a renaissance painting. This creates a tension, a feeling of dislocation between styles. I’m drawn to the way Di Vogo uses colour, particularly how the colourful spheres sit on the surface of the woman's skin, and are scattered across the landscape. They pop out, creating a sense of playfulness and surrealism against the smooth, almost photographic quality of the overall finish. It reminds me a little of the surrealist paintings of Yves Tanguy, who painted smooth abstract forms in desolate landscapes. It shows how painting allows us to see and think about the world in new, imaginative ways.