Danica Knezevic

Summary Bio

Danica I. J. Knezevic currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She is inspired by the individual’s search for self and identity: what lies between visibility and invisibility. She expresses this search through performance, audiovisual installation, and drawing. Her practice is informed by psychology to examine the intimate relationships within the self. Her own history, familial experiences and cultural heritage inform her work: questioning her own origin and expressing these as self-reflective conclusions. She believes that we cannot know the self without looking into our own internal mirrors.

By using her body and the objects that occupy her world, she finds meaning and creates an experience through a tangible experience. This tangible experience seeks to combined the artist and audience or participant, through the one-to-one performance where the audience and artist are one, and intrinsically linked by a new experience.

Knezevic is currently undertaking a PhD candidature at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney. In 2013 she completed a Master of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney and was the co-recipient of the Dominik Mersch Award. She completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design with Honours at Australian Catholic University, Strathfield, where she was awarded the Arts and Science award for the video installation, Bermuda 2009.

 http://dijk.com.au

Artist Statement

Dissolution Line
Dissolution line, Video Still, Duration: 7:54 minutes, Danica Knezevic, 2017

In Dissolution line, Knezevic films an occurrence that would happen even if the camera were not rolling. In a suburb, in the background, on the Hills Hoist or washing line hang the newly cleaned clothes and doilies that surround her home. They are being dried overnight. The wind is strong, as a storm is brewing.

The work is reminiscent of the nostalgia, the apprehension of the everyday and the longing of home. The sensor light turns on at times, highlighting a hyperawareness of movement as well as an association with a being that is lurking. Just before the storm hits, the washing is taken off the line.

Windows
Windows, Video Still, Duration: 4:05minutes, Danica Knezevic, 2017

Windows, is a video work, which reflects on the ambiguity of shadows. The figure is purposefully cleaning while the weather then washes away the dust. Both are doing the same action but have a different purpose. The window is a threshold that is structurally sustained with glass to withhold the outside.

 Ready to hand, Performance, 2017.

Danica Knezevic cleans, gardens and executes everyday labour for her performance Ready to hand, at Woodford Academy. The echoes are of the stories and lives that have pasts but aren’t concrete in the archive. Remembering the repetitive domesticity is highlighted through the space, and its history of maintenance throughout it’s time as an inn, and place of education.

Wearing her grandfather’s clothes, she imparts her own autobiography. Her grandfather, an immigrant to Australia, was a worker of land in his homeland and maintained their family home: everything outdoors was his thing, taking care of the garbage, making sure the house was secure and safe while growing vegetables in the garden.

Many people have passed through Woodford Academy. This work wishes to acknowledge those stories, in particular the handwork of the women who worked in order to survive and provide a warm, nourishing space.