WARREN, Ohio – A solo exhibition by Serbian American artist Dragana Crnjak will open Thursday at the Medici Museum of Art, 9350 E. Market St.
The exhibition, “Forest,” will remain on view through Jan. 4, 2027.
An artist reception will be held from 5-8 p.m. Thursday. The reception is free and open to the public.
Crnjak is a professor of art at Youngstown State University whose studio practice is grounded in painting and drawing.
In “Forest,” Crnjak explores the forest as both subject and metaphorical structure, creating paintings that consider the shifting relationships between time, memory, perception and the physical world. Familiar natural environments become spaces of both comfort and disorientation, encouraging viewers to look beyond the immediately recognizable and consider how an image changes through sustained attention.
The exhibition grew from her everyday observations of the natural world, particularly through walks that prompted a closer awareness of color, light, atmosphere and the constantly changing character of a landscape. What begins as direct observation gradually becomes something less certain – a space between what is seen, what is remembered and what has yet to emerge.
“My studio practice is fueled by curiosity and questions surrounding the concepts of time, memory and the shifting nature of perception,” Crnjak said. “In this body of work, I was interested in forest as both subject and metaphorical structure.”
Crnjak’s paintings also reflect the contemporary experience of encountering images through screens and other forms of hyper-mediated visual culture. By bringing together direct observation and mediated perception, her work considers how technology, memory and the body influence the way people experience the world around them.
Rather than presenting the forest as a fixed or literal landscape, Crnjak creates paintings that remain open and continually changing through the viewer’s experience. Forms may appear familiar before becoming ambiguous; color and light can suggest a particular place while simultaneously evoking something remembered. The paintings occupy a space between recognition and uncertainty, inviting viewers to spend time looking rather than immediately searching for an answer.
“I wanted the space of painting to exist between memory and anticipation, where an image feels both remembered and still emerging,” Crnjak said.
This emphasis on sustained looking is central to “Forest.” Crnjak approaches painting through a combination of systematic strategies and intuitive discoveries, allowing structure and spontaneity to exist together. The resulting works encourage viewers to slow down and consider perception as an active process – one in which meaning can shift with time and attention.
“Forest offers visitors an opportunity to step away from the speed of everyday life and enter a more contemplative experience of looking,” said Katelyn Amendolara-Russo, executive director of the Medici Museum of Art. “Crnjak’s paintings reward patience, allowing new relationships between color, light, space, memory and perception to emerge gradually.”
Crnjak received her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va. She is the recipient of four Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards in Visual Arts, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship and the Distinguished Professorship in Scholarship and Teaching at YSU.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in numerous public and private collections, including the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies program in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Akron Art Museum, the University of Chicago, the Herron School of Art and Design, the Kathryn Markel Gallery in New York City and the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Mich.