Mirjana Ugrinov

Email: janajanev@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.mirjanaugrinov.com

I was born in former Yugoslavia and came to United States in 1970 to visit my childhood sweetheart Branislav. We soon decided to get married and build our lives in the US. After receiving a BFA at Kent State University, I studied Art History at Case Western Reserve University. Branislav and I lived in Cleveland, Ohio, for nearly two and a half decades. In 2001 we established a second residence in Chicago, our favorite city in the US. We are co-principals of Ugrinov Associates, Inc., a Cleveland / Chicago space planning and commercial interior design firm where I am the Design Director in addition to being an artist expressing my ideas through a wide range of mediums -- paintings, fiber art, prints, installations, and public art.

My artwork has been featured in over hundred group and solo shows. My paintings, fiber art, 3-D installations, glass mosaics, etc., are in numerous public, corporate, and private collections. My work has been exhibited at The Cleveland Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Massillon Museum, Akron Art Institute, and the Chicago Cultural Center. In October 2005, I was invited by the members of Bastille Art Association in Paris to take part in the international art exchange Americains in Paris. In August of the same year, my work received favorable press in Scotland during the Edinburgh Art Festival. Last year I participated in Cool Globes, an international public art project in Chicago.

Most recently, the Senior Curator of US Department of State invited me to represent Serbian artists living and working in the US. A diptych The Correct Yes was selected for display at the residence of the US Ambassador and Mrs. Cameron Munter in Belgrade, where it will remain until 2010.

In Chicago, I serve on the Board of Advisors at ARC gallery, the oldest women’s cooperative gallery in the Midwest.

Interview

Mirjana Ugrinov has been a Contributing Blogger on ArtStyle Blog since 2007. Her ArtStyle Blog interview by Amy Rudberg was published in September, 2007.

Gallery / Exhibitions

Recent / Upcoming Exhibitions:
Chicago Expression: The 5 Artists’ Project, Ossia Fine Arts Space, Chicago, August, 2008

Naked Writing Installation – a collaboration with poet Robin Behn. The lines of Behn’s poetry were superimposed upon sculpted, translucent sheets to tell a complex, erotic story line in several voices. Arc Gallery, 832 W. Superior Ave. Web site: www.arcgallery.org. Dates of exhibition: Feb 6 to March 1, 2008.

Artist Statement

Artists build their personal vocabulary through symbols expressed in the medium of their choice. We build our own language of expression, as we grow and change with it.

Mine is the language of light, texture, movement, geometry and their opposites. To try to articulate the reason for desire to create is difficult if not impossible for me. I suspect it is about feeding the psyche’s desire for balance. It is about painting a moment in time, a personal note about one’s emotional interior.
 

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