Tanja Softic biography

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tanja softic

Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1966
Studied at Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia

My work explores memory: its primary source is the classical practice of expanding one's mnemonic capacity through the process of intense visualization of events or objects in imaginary architectural settings. Recently, I have incorporated references to history, war and tenuous relationship of conscience, memory and national identity into my work. Intricately layered, composite images reflect the fragmented, complicated natures of both memory and contemporary living experience.
I am interested in territories between the intellect and senses, places where artistic, literary and scientific methods of inquiry interface: botany, architecture, contemporary and historical medical imaging. In my work, the precision and order of scientific illustration and the fecund, anarchic beauty of plants are metaphors for ways of engagement with the world, and an acknowledgement of numerous ways of discerning and interpreting it.

Selected Recent Exhibitions
2008 Drawing Beyond the Plane, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa Bay, Florida

2007 Recent Prints, K. Caraccio Studio Gallery, New York, New York
Inflorsecence, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Steinhardt Conservatory Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Washington Art Club, Monroe House, Washington D.C.

2006 SCALE, A National Drawing Invitational, Tower Fine Arts Gallery, SUNY College at Brockport, New York
Four Printmakers (with Hung Liu, Karen Kunc, Renee Stout), Washington Printmakers Gallery, Washington D.C.

2005 Bloom and Bomb, Lee Scarfone Gallery, University of Tampa, Florida
Collaboration as a Medium: 25 Years of Pyramid Atlantic, Edison Gallery, Washington D.C.
American Prints in Troubled Times, Cairo University, Egypt
Select III, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Selected public collections
Academy of Fine Arts of the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Ino-Cho Paper Museum, Kochi, Japan
Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
New York Public Library, New York