Velvet & Flesh (2)

Draga Jovanović belongs to the generation of artists that entered the world of art and creativity in the late 1990s, at a time marked by war, the great economic crisis and the general collapse of values in all spheres of social, political and cultural life of the country. The confusing image of reality, oneself, one's own life and place in such a reality was then reflected in a series of abstract paintings and drawings with text, made in the manner of bad art, announcing the social context of his further creative activities and interests. The training in the Kunsthoshule in Kassel (Germany) contributed to the artistic research and deeper coverage of the theoretical platform of "revealing" reality, which went hand in hand with the introduction of the medium of photography as an art form whose documentary properties are emphasized in the work. In several cycles of photographs from the middle of the last decade, which evoke the tradition of brut-art practice, the artist deals with a topic closely related to images of mass media and reality of modern capitalist "spectacle society" and the public sphere, focusing on the phenomenon of production, mechanisms of manipulation and ) use, as he states, "images of a woman as one of the products that is exploited to the maximum".