The next of the OG Peaches to find her place in the Seattle Peach 100 is none other than Miss Tanja Pavićević. A Bosnia native who came of age during the war in the 90′s, Tanja is a photorealist artist who moved to the states in 1999 as a refugee. Seattle Peach met her a decade later at a backyard barbeque, and her winning trifecta of sweetness, smarts and sass have won our hearts forever.
Growing up, Tanja was forced to mature very quickly when the war started, and the very real dangers of conflict didn’t leave a lot of room for youthful rebellions. Tanja has been an artist for nearly her entire life. When she was a young girl, her parents noticed that her doodles were quite advanced for her age–she was obsessing about creating perfect circles before she’d reached double digits. When she was 11, Tanja was sent to an art school in Sarajevo and has been studying art ever since, most recently attending Seattle’s Cornish College. Her focus has been with portraits for some time now, using surrealist details in the background of her pieces to help tell the story of her subject.
Seattle Peach is pleased to feature Tanja in the 100, because through her art, Tanja both processes her own history as a survivor of war, and the intimacy of her subjects
enable the viewer to put themselves in her shoes for a moment. It gives a concept as massive and daunting as war a relatable narrative. She doesn’t politicize her art, she simply tells her story through the images of her past, and in doing so is inherently political. Art about war doesn’t need to be graphic or disturbing to be heart wrenching, and Tanja’s work is exactly that.
Tanja had her first solo show at the Station on Beacon Hill this summer to commemorate the launch of her official web site. She looks forward to doing more shows in the future, and we at Seattle Peach look forward to them, as well. To learn more about Tanja and her art, be sure to check out her website, and scroll below to check out her answers to the Factsheet.
