The starting point of Miona Marte Marković’s painting in the cycle “Krst kao savremeni simbol” (The Cross as a Contemporary Symbol) lies at the very heart of this universal issue. Although her abstraction is preceded by a well-elaborated history, her creation is eruptive and unplanned in this contemporary exegesis of the cross. It is characterized by perfect intuition and color control, and as a signature on the charter of respect for previous research, Marković leaves a fascinating discovery of an entirely new structural form of deconstructing the cross – a discovery that is today so rare, a new breakthrough in the domain of the thoroughly studied geometric abstraction in art.
Marković’s cross, which continues from her previous discovery of this structural form in her earlier cycle of geometric abstraction “Refleksije ravni” (Reflections of the Plane), where the solution was explored in the plane, is more elementary and less burdened by semantic elements. That’s why it is recognizable and striking at first sight, carrying a specific identity, much like the crosses of Malevich or Miodrag B. Protić.
The fact that the artist is aware of the weight of the symbol whose boundaries she examines is also evident from the fact that collage, often present in “Refleksije ravni,” is barely noticeable in the new cycle. The play with decisions on whether the presented work requires interpretation or not is completely shifted in “Krst” (The Cross) to the field of color and form. Only two smaller collages link this cycle to the previous one. This transition in Marković’s work is spontaneous and possible thanks to the shift into the movement within the space of the cross, already filled with history, symbolism, and mysticism, moving from the simpler and lighter space of interpretation in the plane, where the research demanded additional semantic elements.
Dr. Goran S. Milovanović