The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2025 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Dragana Crnjak
Dragana Crnjak StudioYoungstown Ohio 44512 United States Home Phone: 3306190104 Birthday: February 13, 1977 Website: http://www.draganacrnjak.com
Bio
Dragana Crnjak is a Serbian American artist and educator whose studio practice is rooted in painting and drawing. She received her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, in 2004. She is a four-time recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Visual Arts, the Distinguished Professorship in Scholarship at Youngstown State University, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including through the Art in Embassies programs in Belgrade, Serbia, and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in New York City; The Butler Institute of American Art; and The Urban Institute for Contemporary Art in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work is included in numerous private and public collections. She is a Professor of Art at Youngstown State University, where she teaches painting and drawing. She lives and works in Boardman, Ohio, with her husband, three children, and their shipoo, Maja.
Artist Statement
My studio practice is fueled by curiosity and questions surrounding the concepts of time, impermanence, and the shifting nature of perception. Loosely based on images of natural forms and peripheral visions of fleeting moments from everyday environments, the work reflects my desire to suspend meaning for a deeper experience of time and presence. Detectable yet loose and fragmented, the imagery is evocative of formations allusive enough to trigger curiosity and suggest potential new structures. Driven by dichotomies between physical and intangible, permanent and transient, my fascination with color and light underscores the ephemeral qualities of the world around us, as well as my need to engage and retreat at the same time.
In the site-specific wall drawings, drawn with compressed charcoal directly on the wall, I am interested in the visual navigation within the architectural confines of a gallery space. Fragmented and seemingly unstable, these drawn structures invite viewers to navigate through them, triggering visual narratives and open-ended contemplations. By employing compressed charcoal’s physicality and inherent instability, I explore its contradictory ability to convey movement and temporal dimensions amidst stillness. Through these dichotomies, I aim to evoke a sense of impermanence while emphasizing the primacy of the experiential journey itself.