Vojislav Radovanovic
- Anna Lilli Garai
- Aug 12
- 6 min read
Vojislav Radovanovic is a Serbian-born artist based in Los Angeles, working across painting, installation, video, and performance. His works often start from personal moments, symbols, or objects that carry emotional weight. He uses layered materials like fabric, vintage flags, and acrylic to build complex, surreal scenes. Themes such as queer identity, transformation, and chosen family return throughout his practice. Raised during the Yugoslav wars, and later shaped by life in California, his pieces like “The Little Love Affair” and “The Truth Cannot Hide Its Horn” reflect both tenderness and a quiet strength.
Q: “The Little Love Affair” is based on a childhood memory and becomes a tribute to queer love. What made you want to return to that moment through painting?
A: For me, art is not only a form of therapy, but also a philosophy of being. I’ve long believed that creativity has the power to disarm anxiety and dissolve the rigid structures of the everyday mind. When I paint, I don’t begin with a fixed concept, I begin with a sensation, a fragment of memory, an emotion seeking form. Through the act of painting, I enter into a dialogue with my unconscious. Images emerge not only as symbols, but as mirrors, reflecting hidden narratives and psychological patterns embedded since early childhood.
Growing up queer in Serbia during the 1980s and 1990s meant learning early on to mask tenderness and obscure identity. Desire and affection had to be coded, silenced, or erased. Working on this painting over the course of two years allowed me to re-enter that early moment not as a silenced child, but as an adult who has done the work to understand and honor his own history. The act of painting is like a quiet revolution: a way of reclaiming my softness, restoring dignity, and rewriting memories with presence and love. Ultimately, “The Little Love Affair” is about queer love as a radical act of survival. It speaks to the courage required to feel deeply in a world that often punishes vulnerability.
Q: A lot of your figures have animal parts or surreal details, like horns or masks. Why do these forms feel right for the stories you want to tell?
A: Surrealism is, of course, a historic art movement, but for me as an artist, it's a practical methodology that offers me a language to articulate things that are too complex, or too vulnerable. I see hybrid or surreal elements as emotional signifiers, visual metaphors for experiences and inner states that resist literal representation. Surrealism opens the ways to carry the weight of memory, emotion, and the psychological layering that defines the stories I want to tell. A horn, for instance, can suggest defense, or power, or pride, or all of those at once, depending on its context. A mask can point to concealed thoughts, unspoken words, or the delicate tension between what we show and what we hide. These symbolic forms allow my figures to inhabit a poetic, mythological space, home to ample metaphor. I like to give my work a sense of emotional elasticity, making room for contradiction, ambiguity, and transformation. In many ways, they mirror how I experience memory itself: fragmented, shape-shifting, sometimes dreamlike, but always emotionally sincere.
Q: In “The Truth Cannot Hide Its Horn,” you repainted the figures until they felt honest. What helped you know when it was finished?
A: For me, painting is about emotional resonance. Honesty, in that context, means being in alignment with yourself, not painting to please others or to respond to a market, but staying in dialogue with your own unconscious mind. It’s a space that’s both intellectual and emotional, intuitive and reflective.
With “The Truth Cannot Hide Its Horn,” I kept repainting the figures because they initially felt too composed, they appeared on the canvas, but they weren’t truly speaking. I needed them to feel alive, to hold presence. After multiple painting sessions, with layers scraped and erased again and again, I finally knew they were finished when I could look into each face and feel a sense of satisfaction in their eyes, in their expressions. They had settled into their truth.
That work carries many layers of meaning: the female character is based on my mother’s face; the horse bears a human face with the horn; the parrot carries a golden key. These aren’t just surreal symbols, they’re personal and archetypal at the same time. Each element had to feel like it belonged—not in a narrative way, but within a psychological landscape. When they finally coexisted naturally, when nothing felt forced or ornamental, I knew the painting had found its balance, and I finally stepped back.
Q: Works like “Sun Valley” and “Waiting for the Kiss” carry joy and softness. What role do these feelings play in your work?
A: Joy and softness are forms of resistance. I grew up in a time and place marked by war, instability, and repression. Even within intellectual circles, “serious” art was expected to be dark, heavy, and burdened with suffering in order to be seen as meaningful. There was a deep-rooted bias against tenderness or beauty, as if they lacked emotional or intellectual weight. I began to truly evolve as an artist after moving to Los Angeles, where I encountered a more open and liberated creative atmosphere, one that made room for emotional nuance, play, and vulnerability. Over time, I came to understand that joy, beauty, and softness can be just as radical, especially when they arise from a place of sincerity and depth. These feelings bring light into the work, and with that light comes the possibility of healing. In many ways, embracing softness is an act of reclaiming space: for tenderness, for queer love, for emotional truth. It invites the viewer in gently, but with intention and purpose.
Q: You often describe painting as a way to process personal stories and emotions. What does this process look like for you in the studio?
A: My process often begins with a vivid image or symbolic figure drawn from memory, dreams, or intuition. I usually start by applying color and texture in an abstract way, laying down the foundation of the painting. As the work evolves, landscapes emerge, followed by silhouettes of figures—humans, animals, or hybrids that shift between forms and realms. I let the painting guide me, responding to its changes rather than controlling them. I work on paintings over long periods—sometimes weeks, months, or years but in very focused sessions.
There are phases of intense making, followed by long stretches of observation and note-taking. I write down what needs to change or be introduced, and only return when I feel ready to engage again. The process is slow; it allows me to get into deep contemplation, transformation, and trust in the unknown. The studio becomes a safe space—part meditative, part investigative—a place where I can process emotional and psychological stories that don’t always have language. Painting lets me express complexity in a visual form, with honesty and presence.
Q: Ideas like chosen family and transformation keep coming back in your work. When did they first become important to you?
A: I think they’ve always been present, even before I had the language to name them. As a queer person and an immigrant, the concept of chosen family is deeply personal. It's about creating bonds rooted in mutual care, trust, and understanding, rather than just blood or tradition. Transformation has also been essential, but I’ve learned that the environments we inhabit play a powerful role in shaping it. I grew up in a place where change was often forced by survival mechanisms, but later, I began to understand transformation differently. In inclusive, creative communities, transformation becomes something nurtured rather than demanded—something that can be expansive, healing, and self-directed.
Both themes reflect the core of my lived experience, but they also speak to something universal: the human capacity to evolve, to adapt, and to find belonging in unexpected places. In a way, my art is merely a visual record informed by and transforming my own ongoing journey, and I hope that others will gain something from experiencing it.
