Objective beauty is a tranquil state of mind in which we are connected to the highest form of existence. Objective beauty is an undeniable Truth. I’m still in search of it.
Belgrade, Serbia
@eruanne_art
INTERVIEW
Your life has been devoted to art from an early age. Has your family traditionally been involved in art?
My grandmother was a self-taught amateur painter so she passed her talents and love for art onto me, I fondly remember her teaching me art basics when I was little. For example: how to draw a shadow on a ball or a cube. Years passed, and my skills were becoming better and better. From the time I was in elementary school, I had exquisite and professional artwork. So the day came when I started teaching her some skills too. Together, we enjoyed art wholeheartedly. My grandma was not the only one enjoying creative endeavors. My mother loves her decoupage projects, so there is certainly a lot of creativity going on in my family.
It’s impressive that you have been exhibiting for a long time and had a solo show in 2009! What role have exhibitions played in your life?
Yes, I remember asking my school director if I could make my own solo exhibition as part of “The school without violence” project and they obliged. My grandmother was there too, of course, as was the rest of my family. It was a really magical experience and It had a strong impact on me. Overnight, I became the “popular” girl, even though I never fit in with actual popular kids in my school.
I was fascinated with Native American tribes and ambient music and I always wore feathers in my hair. Doubling the reason to have fingers pointed at, but I was just trying my best to be myself, from the inside out. The exhibition made me express myself freely and make people see all the wonders that I see, even though, naturally, I’m a very private person.
I was showing off both my traditional paintings and digital drawings made in “Paint”, which, at the time, was really a hard program to use for drawing. There were some pictures of wolves howling at the moon, a tribal woman warming herself near a fire pit, waterfalls, etc. These experiences later led me to explore Adobe Photoshop and other art programs that I still use to this day.
After graduating in 2019, you actively explored other mediums. Tell us about your search?
In my search for a personal style, within digital media, I noticed how much the digital logic of “quick and efficient” filling of the white background layer can harm the artist’s development and generally the whole art process. It erases the breath of life of the initial characteristic of the sketch. An endless struggle between what I have learned for years (from the traditional) and “how to make a digital illustration” videos. The approaches are often contradictory and I had to find a common solution. I needed to learn how to draw all over again. On the other hand, I have always had the same love for stylized drawing, namely, cartoon styles. I was torn between experience, interest, the flow of the future and the audience demand. Especially with the recent AI development – when a perfectly good picture can be made with one click.
All this made me return to traditional painting. After 4 years of exploring the digital world, I came back to paint as I would before on my canvas, the way I was taught. Due to the whole AI situation, I started filming the process of creating my works, because I wanted to protect myself and prove their origin.
Now, you are actively engaged in digital illustration. What inspired you to create a vintage series? What theme do you discover?
I have always been enchanted by vintage aesthetics. To portray sexiness, grandeur, glamour, and elegance, I often use vintage themes. Their sexipile is almost like poetry. I have a sample of that era in the top layer of the picture, shown through poses, facial expressions, and fashion aesthetics.
Fashion changes over time, but beauty will never go out of style, because beauty is a need of the human soul.
In today’s social networks, beauty overshadowing is more prevalent than ever before. Apart from the increasingly frequent plastic aesthetic procedures, there are filters and excellent make-up artists who completely change the constitution of the face, so this often gives girls a plastic and “unattainable” type of beauty, although, in the background of all this, we have many problems on a global level.
Burlesque has moved to everyone’s phone, and we can see it at any time of the day. One reel can show footage of an ecological disaster and how we should be aware of the way we treat our environment, and the next reel is a sensual dance of a girl with lots of skin on display. Guess which reel the majority will watch till the end?
How do you combine your creativity with freelance work?
I enjoy freelance work as much as I do when I work for myself. Freelance projects can be a big challenge, depending on the client’s requirements and it pushes me out of my comfort zone. In this way, I always learn something new and thus appropriate these new lessons in my personal creative projects in the future. Challenges can be a good refreshment.
As someone who has studied art for most of your life, what advice would you give emerging artists?
Even though everything seems to be stacked against you and there is no place for you in this world, you have to keep pushing.
Practice a lot and let it become your main job and your entertainment. Look up to the great masters and let the quality of the work speak for you.
Even people who are not involved in the art can recognize work of great quality, even though it is apparently a boring theme (e.g. still life or nude). Practice, so that no one can deny the quality of your work, regardless of their taste and subjective interpretation of beauty.
Read, explore yourself and the world around you and choose what you feed your mind with, because eventually, everything creeps into your works, consciously or subconsciously.