The concept of exhibition Incomplete House follows up on my previous research that I implemented under the name of Varoš Nova in the Gallery U10 in Belgrade in April, 2020.

I presented a great number of sights describing my journey along the Ibarska magistrala (State road 22 in Serbia) from Belgrade to Kosovska Mitrovica. The most distinctive painting of this research was Concrete Plant, dimensions 200 X 245 cm, depicting a typical scenery that can be seen when you travel along the Ibarska magistrala as well as a video recording Journey along Ibarska (duration 25 minutes) which in slow motion follows sceneries and journey ambiance typical for the region of Western Serbia, down to south, all away to Kosovska Mitrovica.

The material gathered throughout this journey is very extensive and my intent was to develop it in multiple artistic directions which the Incomplete House concept belongs to.

While, at the Varos Nova exhibition I was predominantly focused on scenery displays and people observing the scenery, with the Incomplete House exhibition my main goal is to present series of artifacts typical for the area along the river Ibar. They refer to partial fragments of the journey depicted in the painting Concrete plant, and a dominant material comes from a series of photos of incomplete facilities- houses that were recorded and gathered throughout the journey.

Although these were motives of incomplete facilities typical for local scenery, I was aiming at not presenting them in paintings as the artifacts of certain social pathos and poverty, on the contrary, at insisting on authenticity of the sights, their sublime beauty and certain weight that they carry in their existence and temporality.

The incompleteness is seen as a display of specific private and collective existential circumstances, changes and dramas that made these type of artifacts to remain incomplete and by its existence it equally testifies about people that started and changed their life journey well as the state of a transitional society where these incompleteness appear as important indicators of the surroundings we live in.

A part from this series of painted artifacts of Incomplete House, the exhibition will present a series of monochromatic collages as well as a Concrete plant which along with it in a form of a closing scene gives insight into journey ambiance and the scenery which most significant elements are elements of incompleteness and transience as with the Incomplete house.

Ljiljana Šunjarević

Belgrade, September, 20221.

Paintings in exhibition:

Incomplete house 1/12 – 12/12, 2021, oil, canvas, 120 х 90 cm;

Incomplete house _ монохромија 1/18 – 18/18, 2021, paper, graphite, 29 х 21 cm;

Journey Along Ibarska, 2019, video recording, duration 25 minutes;

Concrete plant 2020, oil, canvas, 245 х 200 cm;

Ljiljana Šunjevarić (1979), a visual artist from Belgrade, graduated and received her PhD in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. He has been actively exhibiting at group and solo exhibitions in the country and abroad since 2000. Significant solo exhibitions: Map (2009, Belgrade), Archetype (2011, Belgrade, Čačak), Homo sacer (2012, Požega), Novodevichy (2014, Šabac), Novodevichy/remake (intervention on the public sculpture „Laza Lazarević“ in Šabac’s Gospodar Jevremova street, 2015, Šabac), Scenes (2015, Belgrade), Finishing Leonardo (2016, Kraljevo), Migrations: Scene painting (2016, Belgrade; 2017, Raška), Beaches (2018, Kovin), Varoš Nova (2020, Belgrade), Stations (2021, Belgrade). She was awarded in the field of drawing. Her works are present in the art collections of KC Požega, KC Čačak, Gallery of Contemporary Art in Zrenjanin, the collection of the City of Belgrade, the collection of the National Museum of Kraljevo, Šumatovačka – Center for Art Education and in several private collections, She is employed at the Faculty of Arts, University of Priština, with a temporary headquarters in Kosovska Mitrovica, as an associate professor of Painting.