My Artistic Story

I was 2 years old when I told my parents I would be a painter.

It wasn’t easy to fulfill that dream. I wasn’t from an artistic family. Also, not from a wealthy family. Although my father and grandfather were talented, no one in my family ever followed an artistic path. But all of them supported my choice and helped me fulfill my dream.

I was good at many other things, but I felt like myself when I drew and painted.

My family loved art and had a small painting collection, so I was surrounded by art and art books.

In my youth, I drew horses, the natural world, and portraits, and I dreamed of working at the Disney studio.

I was self-taught until I began preparing to enroll in the Academy of Arts. I liked to draw, but I wasn’t sure it would make a great career. However, I felt such joy when I took a figure drawing class for the first time. My drawings were in a soft, painterly style, and professors said I was meant to be a painter. I had the opportunity to learn and grow in the studio of the painter Nikola Džafo. The art classes were very expensive, but my grandparents wanted to support me and paid for them.

I wasn’t very skilled at painting, but I hoped I would find my own style once I learned the technique.

My first attempt to enroll in the Academy of Arts failed, but I was the first one below the enrollment line. It was so hard for me, as I didn’t have enough money to attend art classes for one more year.

I would be forever grateful to my art professors, who believed in me and let me attend art classes one more year without paying. They thought I should be accepted the first time.

I enrolled for the second time in the painting sector at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad in the class of Vlado Rančić. Only 12 of us were selected that year.

For the first time in my life, I was in the right place. I was happy to learn and explore everything.

That was such an immersive experience, learning everything you ever wanted to know.

After 2 years of drawing and painting human figures and still life, we had to try to find our own style.

This was a terrifying experience, and I spent the whole summer experimenting and researching for my style. I started working in oils, and it was so lovely and tough at the same time. I liked the textures and this slow-drying technique, as it let me play with transparency and bold color blocks.

I will never forget my first painting, which was in my style and actually good. It was like someone opened a door I never knew existed. For the first time, I realized I would really be the painter for the rest of my life.

It is not something you choose to be. It chooses you.

You can do something else, try other paths, but in the end, you will always return to your art.

As art is who you are.

So here I am, still following my lifetime dream.

Love, Iva