Nina
Zeljković
Nesting
Patterns
Come
Over Chez Malik‘s at Zollo
April
1-7 2022
Within
my expanded painting and video practice, I investigate topics and
constellations at the intersection between painting and embodiment.
My work is inspired by the attitudes that Byzantine painting held
towards images taking into account the body’s movements through
space and its activation of an immersive experience. During this
state of experience, the painting is marked less by the logic of the
gaze than by the proximity of the body. Being a distinctive and
continuous undercurrent in the history of painting, this field of
pictorial immersion and embodiment ranges from the very beginnings –
Neanderthal and early hand stencil cave paintings at sites such as
the Cave of Maltravieso in Caceres, Spain, to avantgarde action and
performative painting techniques in the 20th century.
In
the context of this ongoing research, last year I undertook a 10
000km long travel through Turkey to research painting in the context
of early Christian communities.
This
Movement
of underprivileged
and
deprived,
took refuge
from Rome in
secluded valleys and created self sustainable
settlements in Cappadocia in the late 3rd century, carving
their homes churches
networks of underground cities in
hardened tuff of the volcanic eruption.
Beside the religious
spaces there
is many functional
and agricultural spaces,
designed to meet basic human needs in everyday life. These include
beehives, dovecotes, water canals, wine
presses, horse
stables, kitchens and ovens. Dovecotes are the landscape formations
most present
in this
landscape.
Dark,
closed rooms for pigeons to roost in at night time. Once a year,
farmers collect the pigeons
dung
to use as fertilizer. Pigeon dung
is extremely rich in nitrogen, a chemical needed for farming
Cappadocia's volcanic soil, and thus the most valued natural
fertilizer. To attract the pigeons, farmers painted a
white background or patterns around the
entrance hole. The dyes used were extracted from trees, flowers, wild
grass and soil with ferrous oxide. Red dye came from a kind of
soil/mud known as “Yosa” in the region. White paint is made by
mixing plaster and white of an egg.
St.
Basil explains how 4th century Cappadocians farmed pigeons:
When pigeon farmers have caught a pigeon, they tame it, and make it feed with them. Then the farmer smears its wings with sweet oil, and releases it to join other birds outside. The sweet scent of that oil makes the wild birds the possession of the owner of the tame bird, for all the rest are attracted by the fragrance, and settle in the pigeon house. (Letter 10)