Happening: MILJANA NIKOLIĆ: Meje percepcije

23. 05. 2026

What if a painting began to breathe?

This installation, which combines painting and digital media, transforms the space into a fluid, living experience. Through projection mapping, the images step out of their frames, take on movement, and blur the line between the static and the living. Before you unfolds the “space in between” the painting and the projection, perception and reality. A state of constant change and happening. An entry into an environment that transforms in real time, where the painting becomes an event, and observation turns into an experience.

Author: Miljana Nikolić (2004, Kraljevo, Serbia)

Miljana Nikolić graduated from an art high school, specializing in fine arts, with an emphasis on traditional painting and drawing. This foundational practical knowledge remains a key part of her creative process and forms the core of her artistic identity.

In 2023, she moved to Nova Gorica, where she enrolled at the Academy of Arts in the undergraduate program in Digital Arts and Practices, specializing in New Media. In her work, she intertwines two parallel creative practices and explores the relationship between the analog and the digital. For her, painting remains the starting point of experience, while digital media enable her to transform and critically reflect on the contemporary context of life.

The present work is her thesis project under the mentorship of Peter Purg.

"This is a personal position of existing in between, between it and me. One part of me remains on one side of the boundary, while the other builds a new perception of my own life. Between what I see and what I try to understand. Between the image, the body, and technology. I open up a space in which I constantly question my own perception and change the way I see. Through a series of hand-painted images that function as self-contained units, I introduce an additional layer that destabilizes what we see and opens up a space for doubt and questions. Who am I in this relationship? And where, exactly, does the artist stand? The images are fragments of the inner states of my personal experience, translated into matter. Their 'incompleteness' is a conscious decision. There is an invisible layer that is not revealed by sight alone. It creates a sense of movement, as if the painting were breathing and changing, erasing the boundary between the static and the living. The installation introduces the viewer to a state of gentle uncertainty.

In this state, perception begins to function in an unstable and changeable way. With this work, I speak of the personal experience of life in between—between different systems, media, and realities. The images depict me as a process that is constantly changing. The installation remains open and raises questions. Where does what we see end, and where does what is shown to us begin?

Do boundaries even exist, or do we create them ourselves through the way we look?"