Stojakovic appropriates scientific illustrations and diagrams found in the texts of electrokinetics, cytology, and astronomy, seizing them as points of departure for visual experiments. At first glance his colored drawings, strengthened by alkyd paint and wood stain washes, appear as hybrids of floating signs and shapes. Lyrically they allude to the fluctuating energy of magnetic circuits, ruptured organic kernels, and astral constellations. In Stojakovic’s process diagrammatic structures mutate into aesthetic surrogates. Initially objective, quantifiable and graphically inert scientific information becomes transcribed into subjective and qualitative visual inscriptions. Stojakovic maps out topographies of surface that insinuate meanings still buried in the ground, still unearthed. Unlike most of his Canadian contemporaries, Stojakovic explores color in order to remind us of the beautiful, an aesthetic category once exiled from the territories of postmodernity.
Vladimir Spicanovic, excerpt from the Inherited Content exhibition catalogue
Vladimir Spicanovic teaches contemporary art theory and painting at the School of Visual Arts, University of Windsor