{"id":6021,"date":"2023-12-06T18:10:44","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T15:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/?p=6021"},"modified":"2023-12-12T15:12:41","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T12:12:41","slug":"subsign-spotlight-121-interview-with-ilustrator-tijana-lukovic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/subsign-spotlight-121-interview-with-ilustrator-tijana-lukovic\/","title":{"rendered":"Subsign Spotlight #121: Tijana Lukovic."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Subsign: First, can you tell us a few things about yourself?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: My name is Tijana and I am an illustrator from Serbia, living and working in Belgium. In my work I am very interested in mythology, old folk tales, fairytales as well as dreams and consciousness. I collect books on those subjects and have a goal to make my home into a big personal library.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: What was your childhood like? Do you think your childhood experiences have influenced your present creative endeavors?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I do believe that childhood plays an important role in what kind of people and artists we become later in life. I had the luck to grow in a small town in a house very close to a big forest, small water stream and a meadow. I ran wild and free with my friends, inventing games from our imagination and in a connection with nature around us. I loved to read a lot and spent lots of time with my nose in the books, completely transporting myself in those magical fictional worlds. I was interested in anything mystical, magical or mysterious and my play was always revolving around it. As a child I was always drawn to paints and expressing myself through pictures I was putting on paper and that strongly remained into adulthood.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: What did you want to be as a grown up?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I remember I had wished to become a biologist for a little while but always wished to become an artist.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsign: What does your workstation look like?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I have my own studio room in the house and it\u2019s a special sanctuary of mine. It\u2019s really a reflection of me and my work and it\u2019s a place where I can freely get lost in my thoughts, my work or a book. It\u2019s full of books on the subjects I am interested in, nature finds, shells, stones, branches or special objects I get around (mostly flea markets) like mirrors, ceramics, crystals, candles. And of course all sorts of art materials! I love to surround myself with things I like and which inspire me. The moment I enter my studio I feel the inspiration growing and an urge to dive into my world and paint pictures I get from there.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: Do you have a work style? How would you describe it?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: My style is connected to my interests and the type of materials I like to use. I love to paint with watercolours or gouache and subjects I choose are witchy, mystical and nature inspired. For me it\u2019s important that through my work I get in touch with something that is intuitively known but very difficult to be explained.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: Can you share with us how your creative process works?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I often get this question and find it very difficult to answer as the way I work is very intuitive and part of a bigger process I call getting to know myself, my purpose and the reason I am here. The images I get in my head while on that journey of self discovery are mostly those that I later put in my illustrations. I almost see my whole body of work as a very personal diary that serves me to understand this infinite, full of mystery world we live in. It is also a healing process for me and my soul and something I feel called to do in order to feel more whole.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: What is your favorite work you have done so far?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: It is an illustration called Light in the Dark. I somehow feel it came from a larger consciousness than just my own. Like I got lucky there to bring something from what I call \u201cthe very deep deep down\u201d.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: Who do you follow for inspiration?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I follow many amazingly talented artists and admire their skill and personal worlds but my own inspiration comes from the books I read, documentaries I watch and overall diving deep into subjects I am interested in. Inspiration is always there if the amazement with the world around you is there as well. It comes together: being in awe with the mystery of the world and being inspired by it.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: What advice would you give to someone starting out in the creative field of work?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I would tell them to get to know themselves, their inner worlds and then use those unique ways of being and seeing in their work.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: If you could have a super power, what would it be?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: To heal the planet that is our home.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: Can you recommend a book, a song and a movie, for our readers? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: With pleasure!<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Book: <\/span>“Foxfire, Wolfskin” by Sharon Blackie<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Song: <\/span>“Savage Daughter” by Ekaterina Shelehova<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Movie: <\/span>“Another Earth”<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>Tv Series: <\/span>“Dark”<\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subsign: If you could throw any kind of party, what would it be like and what special occasion would you choose?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: I doubt I would be the one to throw a party. I dreaded my own birthdays when I was little. I am very introverted and parties, especially with me as an organizer make me feel nervous and overwhelmed.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subsign: What famous people would you invite to the party and why?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tijana<\/span>: So there would not be a real party but let\u2019s say I invite this person for a coffee or a tea, that would be one of my favorite writers <\/span>Haruki Murakami<\/span><\/a>. I would love to talk about his creative process and the way he gets his ideas for books.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, Tijana, for being a part of our Spotlight!<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you know an artist that should be in the spotlight, contact us at teodora@subsign.co<\/a>.<\/span> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more of <\/span> Tijana‘s work, you can follow her work on the links: <\/span>Tijana on Instagram,  <\/span>Tijana on Pinterest.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Subsign: First, can you tell us a few things about yourself? Tijana: My name is Tijana and I am an illustrator from Serbia, living and working in Belgium. In my work I am very interested in mythology, old folk tales, fairytales as well as dreams and consciousness. I collect books on those subjects and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[90,76,108,109],"class_list":["post-6021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlight","tag-spotlight-interview","tag-subsign-spotlight","tag-tijana-lukovic","tag-tijana-lukovic-interview"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6021"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6157,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6021\/revisions\/6157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/subsign.co\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}