Yu: The Lost Country
Dragana Jurišić

Yugoslavia fell apart in 1991. With the disappearance of the country, at least one million five hundred thousand Yugoslavs vanished, like the citizens of Atlantis, into the realm of imaginary places and people. Today, in the countries that came into being after Yugoslavia’s disintegration, there is a total denial of the Yugoslav identity. Now, more than twenty years after the war(s) started, Dragana Jurišić feels at the safe distance to recall and question her own memories of both the place and the events she experienced.

“Between the silences which seem to envelope the older generation and the ennui of the young, Jurisic’s YU is the landscape of still and mournful places, in which the weight of the past forces itself upon everything. Rebecca West valiantly fought to believe in the future of Yugoslavia. Dragana Jurisic traces the effects and aftershocks of its disintegration in the subtlety of her colours, her capacity for intimacy and the intelligence and empathy with which she sees what was once Yugoslavia.” (Colin Graham for SOURCE Photographic Review)¹

Dragana Jurišić was born in Slavonski Brod, Croatia (then Yugoslavia). She is currently based in Dublin, Ireland. Jurišić won a number of awards and exhibited widely both in Ireland and abroad. In 2008, she completed a Masters in Fine Art at the University of Wales, Newport, receiving a distinction for her work.

The Oonagh Young Gallery is a space for art, artists, curators, writers, and all those interested in the world of contemporary art. A diverse and interesting programme is developed through working with curators and artists who have a distinctive voice and vision for their practice – thus creating a space that aligns the intellect and the aesthetic in exhibitions that challenge and reward the viewer.