PAST EXHIBITION
Tanja Softic: Recent Works
November 6, 2009—December 24, 2009
Press Release
PHILADELPHIA- In the main gallery space, WALLS at Wexler proudly presents an exhibition of recent paintings and works on paper by Bosnian artist Tanja Softic. An Opening Reception will take place on First Friday, December 4th, from 5 – 8pm.
Tanja Softic's prints and paintings bring a unique perspective to the universal concepts of life and death, nature and shelter, and memory and identity. While earning her MFA in the United States, war broke out in the artist’s homeland. The Bosnian war left Sofnic a refugee, permanently altering the identity both of her homeland and herself.
At this point, Softic’s work began to contemplate the effects of time and change and how these experiences are remembered in human terms as well as in nature. Observing the anatomy of plants, animals, medical instruments, utilitarian objects, and architecture, Softic often juxtaposes iconographic images of the natural world with man made environments and tools. Through her multi layered and richly textured work, the artist seeks to explore the “places where artistic, literary and scientific methods of inquiry interface.” The artist says her “composite images reflect the fragmented, complicated natures of both memory and the contemporary living experience.”
Migrant Universe, the artist’s most recent series, “addresses factors of cultural hybridity that shape the identity and world view of an immigrant: exile, longing, translation, and memory.” Referencing both visual and conceptual ideas about maps, star charts, and other interpretations of scale and distance, the artist believes these drawings and prints “suggest a displaced existence: fragmented memories, adaptation, revival, and transformation.”
Softic’s work has been exhibited extensively in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa and can be found in many prominent collections. She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the 1996 National Endowment for the Arts / Southern Arts Federation Visual Artist Fellowship and the Open Society Institute Exhibition Support Grant in 1997. Softic has a BFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in the University Of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and an MFA from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She is currently Associate Director of Art at the University of Richmond, VA.
The Wexler Gallery is located at 201 North Third Street in the historical district of Old City Philadelphia. We invite you to visit our gallery or explore our website at www.wexlergallery.com. For high resolution images or additional information, please contact Sienna@wexlergallery.com or call (215) 923-7030.
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