>>2648449

I have spent time digging on Biljana and these are some of the things that I think are relevant.

1. She is Serbo-Croat born Belgrade 1973.

1. She grew up during the Yugoslav crisis. In one article she noted, "I would not like to live like the nineties when my family literally had nothing to eat."

1. She states that her work is highly autobiographical and it is probable that she has experienced peadophilia first hand.

In the same article of, October 18, 2007: she says . . .

"I read a lot, from junky novels to pure art novels, am addicted to TV who works 24 hours per day, I hardly watch but I need to have it in the room, maybe it is compilation of my thoughts that I collect through ordinary day like seeing some old man struggling with his poverty and starting to fade from the face of earth without being seen at all, or seeing an other victim of paedophilia for this and other subjects unfortunately I didn’t need any imagination. Just a pure reality.

Source: https://thethermostatandthegreendragoon.blogspot.com/2007/10/interview-with-biljana-djurdjevic.html

1. She cites a book called Hypnerotomachia Poliphili as having a major influence on her work.

"The book dates back to 1499, and its significance for art is equal to the Holy Grail".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnerotomachia_Poliphili

1. Her artworks are often very large. (See Image from Braverman Gallery Tel Aviv). The brushwork is well executed, the colours calibrated to chill, the symbolisim employed is pure Jungian archetypal, the gestures of the figures extremely tense and the effect on a viewer would pack a hell of a punch and communicate across many cultures.

1. Her use of tiled backgrounds is widespread in her works between 2006 - 2009.

Her works post 2010 use forests and moors as the menacing backdrops.

Source: https://biljanadjurdjevic.com/home/work

1. In one video interview she explains how she picks the background to intentionally convey a setting for fear from the point of view of the "executer". (By doing this she is projecting this perspective onto the audience of her artwork - making the viewer see through the eyes of the perpertrator of malevolence). This is extremely clever and is probably exactly why Tony P is attracted to her art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNaUvMxcIiw

1. Many of the faces of the figures in her work look very like her own.

1. She was catapaulted to attention in 2000 and was initially very shy about it. Her work was admired by Danijel Kostov and Karol Zeman.

Source: https://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id=1094248 (This needs to be Google translated - but is perhaps the most insightful article).

1. I did not see anything that would explain the red shoes other than that Bowie is one of her inspiring muses.

1. Washington Post article shows that Tony Podesta has at least three of her paintings.

1. "In my paintings there must be my inner story, my happiness, my pain. Otherwise it's a lie."

Source:

Conclusion: Whether one likes her art or not Biljana is a highly accomplished artist - probably on a level with Lucien Freud Edvard Munch & Francis Bacon. Her work expresses unremitting feelings of melancholy, menace and dread that she carries within herself. There is a lot that is highly distasteful - but obviously not to everyone. She comes across as obsessive and pure in her pursuit of her truth.

My view is that the relationship between the tiles of the Vanderbilt pool and the tiles in her paintings is purely coincidental. There is an enormous amount of feverish speculation about tile patterns etc and very little ceramic evidence backing the idea that she painted the pictures of the prepubescent children from photos taken in the Vanderbilt's pool.

Without evidence to the contrary it is more likely that her chosen subjects and the way they are portrayed were her own confabulations that were seen admired and later purchased by Patron Podesta. Although it is possible that some might have been commissioned specially by a patron - I think it is less likely that she would do so.