• Note -Introducing the artist Milena Boskovic Badnjar. She is a fellow artist who resides in Belrade, Serbia. Milena and I are working on a collaborative series that will be shown in Serbia.
• ​Below is her artist statement and selected works by Milena.

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​In a complete commotion a person has to take a stand and put it on the market. 
Based on dadaist principles, this production  bares a title ”L’ART POUR L’ART EX-SUPERSTAR, IT IS TIME TO SHINE”  
 Techniques of classical painting,  became too heavy for a present-day consumer with weary concentration, ripped apart from the amount of demands he has to fulfill on a daily basis.  Now is the time for more direct, stronger and purer step towards the observer. He needs to be splashed, slapped, refreshed, coloured, overjoyed.
 
All polished, shiny, untouchable, mighty, puffed,  unscratchable, with stretched and overstrung surface, the 21stcentury calls for perfection, maybe too external, too formal, loathing old age and decay.
 I wanted to give my contribution by harmonizing the relation between the exterior and the interior and reviving the spirituality on several levels.
 
I often work with elements which represent the minds of the machines. Pulled out of their usual context and detached from their function, they are still filled with urban symbolic, logic, beauty and intense colours.
 It is not my goal to promote the idea of recycling although I support it wholeheartedly out of respect for this tormented planet. I am more impressed by the beauty of those pieces of old gadgets. Furthermore, the materials I use are documents of time and changes, of expensive and complex manufacturing processes, facts of the magnificent human thought. 
Used as elements of artwork they are in an upcycle process different from recycle in which the objects are degraded to feedstock. The artistic upcycle process glorifies those chosen objects as aesthetic symbols.
 
 
I call for a new breakthrough in the face of a new collapse of western civilization which as the Dadaists said is “a dangerous mystification giving false stability and illusion of an anthropocentric universe.” 

Old things in new clothes. For Dadaists The First World War signified a great comeback of western man’s egoism and megalomania. Wars are still around us, aren’t they?  
 
An entire century passed without any essential change. I enjoy the changes in aesthetics; any other change has to be an act of personal effort. With my exhibition I wish to give hope in the belief that every individual refinement is worthwhile.
My paintings are ‘rap’ and ‘dread’, ‘parkour’ and ‘comics’, ‘graffiti’ and ‘pseudo Esperanto’ with lots of joy and urban defiance toward the expected and the linear, with the idea of desirability of shine, Шајn, with capital Cyrillic Ш. Shhh...shhh... A calming sound. Shine is an achievable feeling. We all have it and we can bring it to the surface.
 
Milena Bošković Badnjar 

A little over a year ago I began a series of works regarding the nature of the now almost constant forms of surveillance we are under in our daily lives. Whether it's Social Media, and other online venues or ever-present cameras around us we have essentially given up our privacy. What does that mean? Does it matter? The work below is one of three in the series thus far.

The above piece will be featured in the "ArtsIlliana gallery in Terre Haute, Indiana beginning August 2, 2019-October 18, 2019. The show is entitled "Red". Below is the Gallery statement about the show.
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"Is RED just a color? If it is, then how many variations of RED are there? Throughout history humans have had a love/hate relationship with RED, e.g. in the 20th century we had RED countries and in the 21st century we have RED states. Is RED more than just a color?" - nArtsIlliana
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Link - http://www.artsilliana.com

Music, Lyrics and Images by Art Tucker

My visual interpretation of Charles Bukowski's Poem, "Bluebird"

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

Tristan Tzara Video
by ArtotemArt

The Continuum
​Created by ArtotemArt

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Life, mine and yours has a place in the vast continuum of existence if only for the time span of each of our lifetimes. This continuum contains the “I Have Been”, the “I Am, and the “I Will Be” of self. This special timeline reaches backward and forward from the moment of right now. Right now is influenced by the chosen and random narrative of what came before, mixed with the choices of this very moment and the randomness of now. The “I Will Be” of my future and yours is understandable (if only partially) by exploring the “I have Been” and the “I Am” of the narrative and artifacts of self.
   
Personal Narratives and Artifacts
 
Our personal narrative of self contains the stories we piece together of our life. Some are accurate representations of life and self and some are not. These stories, colored by our beliefs and inclinations, can be more powerful than the circumstances and events were it possible to consult an impartial observer. In essence, they are really our personalized alternative narratives and are explanatory artifacts for understanding life. My narrative is no different and is represented by the blog entries on the first page of this web site.
 
We travelers along this continuum of life create and use artifacts. These artifacts can be physical objects or they can be less visible as pointed out above. Like archeologists we can excavate and expose our “personal artifacts” to a light of the present. We can examine them and define the real and metaphorical connection to their place in our lives.  Doing so can give us some chance of understanding our possible futures in a world that is filled with wonders and yet at times can be difficult.
 
My personal narrative and artifacts are partially represented on this web site. It contains small glimpses of how I examine the “I Have Been” and the “I Am” of my self. Some of the artifacts I present are complete and have their place further back on the continuum; others exist and are being created in the now. All can and probably will lead to the place of  “I Will Be” on my personal continuum and “process of being”.

Collage
ArtotemArt

SHE
 
The upside down pendulum,

slowing time’s twisted travel.

She seeks something.

Certainty’s clarity, a message, a sign.

Something, anything that says, “Yes”.