MIODRAG JANKOVIC Email; jankovicart@gmail.com ph. 0478 362 798 Rye Vic
www.jankovicart.com
Miodrag Jankovic is a son of a migrant family who sought a better life in a foreign land. This did not turn out to be a better life for a teenager who was brought up on a diet of adventure playing amongst early Roman architecture, gypsy music, a colourful country and even more colourful characters, full of passion for life.
Instead he was confronted with conservative lifestyles in endless suburbia, constantly subjected to racism and bullying.
It was these elements that were the starting paint of self expression through painting and drawing.
In 1977 Miodrag finished his foundation year at Dandenong Technical College and then in 1978 entered Prahran College of Advanced Education where he was tutored by Jeff Makin, Victor Majzner, Roger Kemp and Bob Jacks.
After graduating in 1980 he embarked on an endless list of dead end jobs, finally landing a job in a picture framing workshop. It was in this workshop that he experienced handling of original Australian Contemporary Artworks. He was privy to the artists work before they hit the gallery walls. The artists whose work was being framed were predominately from Powell Street Gallery , including Jan Senberg, Alan Mittleman, Ian Parry, Roslyn Pigott, John Campbell, Peter Booth, Peter Ellis, Rick Amor, John Kelly, John Cattapan, John Robinson, John Walker and eventually himself.
Miodrag holds the dubious honour of being the last show before Powell Street Gallery went down the gurgler along with numerous other galleries in the early 90’s.
Fast forward to 2000 and three children later Miodrag and his family moved from Melbourne to the Mornington Peninsula where he paints fulltime and plays music as his favourite past time.
THE AGE NEWSPAPER - Wednesday 17 July 1985. ART REVIEW by Gary Catalano
“Miodrag Jankovic, who makes his debut in a group show at Powell Street Gallery, South Yarra, is the single painter among the three. Now in his mid-20s, Jankovic came to Australia in 1971.
In all his works he employs a primitive vocabulary of blocky, cylindrical and conical forms, none of which is purely geometric. His best painting (and here I’m thinking of ‘Rear Window’ and the two called ‘Urban Landscape’) are those in which he assembles these forms so as to produce slightly dated industrial landscapes.
I found the awkwardness attractive. Jankovic likes to emphasise the divisions between forms not just with thick lines but also by abruptly changing the direction of his strokes. Like the choppy pools of scudding strokes which underline the conjunction of certain forms, these features all embody a weight of personal feeling. They almost make sincerity a tangible thing.
Subconsciously, I suspect, Jankovic is painting that milieu his parents entered on their arrival here. For reasons too complex to unravel now, the industrial landscape is a theme which has been shunned by most native-born artists. Who is there besides Whisson and the Blackman of the 1950s? When the National Gallery of Victoria gets around to mounting a survey of such works it could well include one of Jankovic’s - along with those, of course, by such foreign-born artists as Jan Senberg and Peter Booth.”
………………………………………………
THE AGE NEWSPAPER - Wednesday 15 February 1989. ART REVIEW by Elizabeth Cross
“At Powell Street three painters make their debut. Of the three, Miodrag Jankovic is the most assured. While he wears his influences on his sleeve (elements of John Walker and Firth-Smith)and the motif of a primitive sailing vessel is a bit too simple and schematic, his handling of paint demonstrates feeling and accomplishment.
…………………………………………….. | 
