Serbian textile artist Brankica Zilovic is based in Paris and has exhibited widely around the world. Her work covers a range of genres including large scale tufted wall installations and embroideries. “My work is situated at the crossroads of individual considerations and historical and political concerns with the overall aesthetic resulting in an abundant form of playfulness.”  

Firstly where are you based and where do you create? 

I was born in Serbia. I’ve been living in Paris since 1998 and have my art studio is based in the suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux. I consider myself as a French and Serbian artist and educator.

What is your background in textiles? 

I graduated from the École Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts of Paris (DNSAP) and from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. I’ve been deeply involved in education for over 15 years. Today I teach at TALM in Angers, Textile as a medium in contemporary art, and an Introduction to Textiles and Fiber Art for BFA Parsons in Paris. 

When I arrived in France, I started to admire traditional crafts. It was in the early 2000s when we could see a real return and rebirth of crafts. There was a phenomenon of diversification of the ideologies and convictions around mediums. Craft was on one side and contemporary art on the other. Suddenly, everything became possible and everything could be reassessed again. Also, in the 1980s and 90s you could see how textiles could take an important place in the critical art space. I remind you that the work of Rosemarie Trockel, Ghada Amer, Annette Messager or Louise Bourgeois. Through textiles important questions arose around gender, the values ​​of our society, the individual, the political subjects and of female emancipation.

How do you describe your work? 

My work is situated at the crossroads of individual considerations and historical and political concerns with the overall aesthetic resulting in an abundant form of playfulness. My personal cartography paradoxically, leading nowhere else than in the meanderings of the human psyche, that reflects territories and spaces as temporal allusions. Indeed, repetition, accumulation and labor emphasise a daily demand, if not an obsession where time expands and displays an another dimension, as if it were a question of warding off the demons and curses of the past by substituting memory for the mechanisation of the gesture. 

All of my artistic attempts and intentions are linked with my cultural background. The central theme in most of my art is around the boundaries of  individuals and collectives. By channeling my creative attempts across the map-tracing and cartographies, my aim is to unravel the question of borders, frontiers, dislocations, spoliations and reconstructions, whether individually, as a group or as a society! My deep inner being is constantly searching and craving for a territory to live, the place that I refuse to call diaspora. It is hard to accept or to identify a place in-between, a no-man’s land. Forgetfulness, loss, or degeneration, which drives my work, are nothing less than calls for new beginnings. Hence the need to grasp my compositions as the expression of a form of optimism, an optimism that would remain latent, perhaps paradoxical, an optimism that would welcome life and its possibilities rather than its regrets.

What is it about textile art that appeals to you?

Often used as tactile form of expression, communication and application, textile materials are objects and structures that seeks to be understood, with their own system of language, their potentials and limits, with multiple meanings and interpretations. Therefore experimentation is the best way to capture all that sensitive and tangible ways of meandering creative navigations. There is something very exiting about Textile practice, ordinary and extraordinary almost genius in the same time. 

When I start exploring and experimenting the rich potential of textiles and threads in my first painting and embroidery hybrids I felt so special and rebellious in the same time. If I hadn’t simply started experimenting with embroideries as a conceptual strategy of drawing, I would probably never become that much involved in Textile medium as today. So the place of experimentation and innovation is essential in Textile art. From my point of view, textile allows coexistence between the art and craft, and offers the opportunities to consider many questions, including history and ethics.

What techniques do you use? 

My large-scale wall installations are made by using a tufting gun or embroidery. The three-dimensional soft sculptures, small scales embroideries on canvas, paper, books, etc. Also, recently, the hybrid objects made from concrete and threads expression! There is myriad of visual possibilities and rich innovative and laborious way to approach both scales of composition, soft or solid materials expressions, etc… it’s no surprise that contemporary textile artists showcase the vast array of “possibilities” while dealing with fabric, thread, and yarn.

Can you briefly describe the process of creating one of your art works? 

I usually start from the material, the yarn, around which I continue developing the idea of the subject, based on my personal concept.Both the concept and the material are frequently developed and challenged. Sometimes the pure concept could guide me to the textile or combine techniques solutions, and vice-versa direct a textile approach will raise a creative and subversive strategy of questioning! I have no precise expectations or assumptions regarding the process, but I certainly have a definition of my dialectic.

I know this is a very broad question but how long does a piece take? 

It depends…. we all know how long and time consuming all textile art production and finalisation can be.  Sometimes, my beloved interns and assistants gives me the very important hand in a very critical moments, so I would like to  warmly mention Chloe Saugez, Alice Le Ster,  Estelle Saignes, Charolotte Nord, Jessie Hue, Elena Marchal and Kathryn Frey.  

Your work has been exhibited in and is in collections of numerous galleries and institutions. How did this come about? 

During last 17 years I have developed different projects with art galleries and institutions in France, Germany, Italy, China, Senegal, USA and Serbia, Art museums, French contemporary art centers, local and regional cultural centers in France (followed by workshops and lectures), fashion magazines, advertising agencies etc. 

Currently I’m represented by Gallery Laure Roynette in Paris, L’oeuil Gallery in Geneva and Novembar Gallery in Belgrade. I have obtained a second prize for painting from Painting Award Antoine Marin in Paris and 1st MAUTO Award for installation in Italy.

Do you have any advice to aspiring textile artists?

I always define myself simply as a contemporary artist with a strong interest for an independent and prevailing language of Textiles. Textile with its versatility that finally reveals a core drawing, painting sculpture or installation questions. So, from my perspective it’s highly important to remain deeply connected to the core contemporary art questions and considerations. Restricting the Textile art only to his technical, craft-art aspect or traditionally women assigned medium dimension would be “low-down” consideration, and all previous historical endeavors of many artist who paved the way to the shift of this perception of Textile Fiber Art would be swept away.

Textile artist, curators, institutions, art critics and journalist, all carry a responsibility to preserve and foster a recognition of Textile as an autonomous medium in fields of contemporary art. We are all witnessing a wide range of textile and fibers conception and creations, but also the opportunity to reveal a political, social and ethical inherent meaning of our contemporary enchanted and disenchanted world.

Are there any exciting plans ahead?

I’m about to prepare my next solo show “Memory Fields” in Novembar Gallery in Belgrade. 

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to warmly thankyou my Gallery Laure Royenette in Paris, L’oeuil Gallery in Geneva, Novembar Gallery in Belgrade, as well as curators Marie Deparis, Julien Verhaeghe, Clement Thibault, Maja Kolaric and Alexandra Lazar. 

https://brankica74.wixsite.com/brankicazilovic

www.laureroynette.com/brankicazilovic

https://www.loeil-gallery.ch/2019/11/29/zilovic/

http://novembargallery.com/

https://www.instagram.com/brankicazilovic

“https://www.facebook.com/brankica.chauvain/