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Dragan SimicLife - The Juncture Acrylic on Canvas 55” x 55”For Dragan Simic, color “changes the way we feel and react.”In his collages and paintings, the colors of earth, sky and watercombine in images that are at once intricate abstractions andstrong evocations of landscape. Those hues set off vibrations thatgive his canvases a high degree of energy. Broad bands of brightshades bump up against backgrounds of more muted tones, thejuxtaposition resulting in an almost three-dimensional ambience.A series of rectangles may seem to lift off the canvas, or onecomplex pattern might appear to recede behind another. Simicsays that his work depicts a “geography of inner experience” andindeed that mixture of inner and outer worlds can be seen in theway he mixes painting styles, as well as colors, on his canvases.Precise series of dots and geometric shapes often share spacewith blurred imagery and drips of paint. The different textures keepthe eye busy, while Simic’s strong graphic sensibility maintains anoverall sense of order.Having spent many years in Australia, Dragan Simic, who wasborn in what is now Serbia, shows the influence of his adoptedhomeland’s desert vistas in his work. There is also an echo of aboriginal painting here, but the world that this work creates iscertainly all the artist’s own.www.dragansgallery.comwww.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Dragan_Simic.aspxCaroline Josephs PhDpassion for nature and its deeper meanings isA inherent as a driving force in the paintings createdby Caroline Josephs, Ph.D. Her images seemtimeless, forging connections with the Aboriginalcultures of her Australian homeland.With a backdrop of layered colors and texturesimbuing her images with earth, water and sky,Josephs depicts nature’s power as both spiritualand physical. Whether her eye is turned towards apiece of driftwood or a human figure, she may infuseher paintings with a sense of the fossilized – as ifunearthed from an archeological dig. The touch ofthe ancient is melded with a modern sense of colorand composition. Glints of bright red, blue or orangestartle the viewer, animating the artwork with aCountry of the Heart 4 (detail) Acrylic & Ink on Canvas 39” x 37”distinctive contemporary feel and existing in tandem with a curiously elemental energy.An appealing sensuality permeates the images, partly through the way in which natural objects are shown to have strongresonances with the human body. This is just one way in which the artist’s empathy with texture allows for a multiplicity ofmeanings in the work. Realistically depicted rock or tree bark can also be seen as abstract, iconic patterns. The impulse to touchthese images is strong and the physical, tactile magnetism they convey adds to their visual power.www.carolinejosephs.com.auwww.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Caroline_Josephs_phd.aspx56 ARTisSpectrum