In fact, this body of work is largely concerned with the idea of home, though Crnjak said at the gallery talk that it isn’t important for the viewer to know that. Certainly the formal qualities of the work stand on their own, but it is fascinating to learn more about Crnjak’s sources.
Since moving to the United States from her native Bosnia, Crnjak’s work has explored issues of memory, particularly in relation to her childhood home, now impossibly removed by passing time, geographical distance and political strife. Her drawings attempt to re-create or remember her home and the surrounding village.
Perhaps inevitably, the jagged, pebblelike patches of charcoal read like charred embers and debris of a war-torn country. There is a sense of things falling apart or being held tenuously together. Through this personal, biographical impetus Crnjak creates work that we all can relate to. Her fragmentary renderings of a symbolic childhood home evoke the fleeting, fuzzy nature of memory and the inevitability of change and forgetting.
It should be noted that this is the Page Bond Gallery’s first show in its new space on West Main Street. The building is an impressive work of art in its own right with a modern, airy interior anchored by a stunning cement wall that elegantly partitions the gallery space. S
The work of Dragana Crnjak is on display at Page Bond Gallery, 1625 W. Main St., through Oct. 14.
