In a single corridor of the Hyde Park Art Center, Vesna Jovanovic has served up a collection of paintings full of substances that ooze, drip and stretch with a taffy-like elasticity.
The works form her latest exhibition, “Carnival,” a show that leans into the playfully grotesque. The assortment of pieces draws attention to the many abstract forms inhabiting their pictorial planes — shapes that undulate with a bodily animation, as disturbingly wonderful as they are downright squeamish. Taking inspiration from medieval French carnivals and other performative festivities, the works spur double-takes, surprise and pleasure. In Jovanovic’s paintings, lessons are hidden in plain sight, and the joy found in blatant perplexity makes you want to come back for more.
Jovanovic, a Chicago native, earned undergraduate degrees from Loyola University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA from The Ohio State University. Her practice impressively incorporates those cross-disciplinary influences. Despite this expansive range, she has remained fixated on the human body, dissected across themes, techniques and mediums. Newer, however, is Jovanovic’s developing exploration into chance operations — a tactic sometimes used by artists to introduce an element of randomness — as a catalyst for her work. The outcomes of this process make up “Carnival”: diluted ink is spilled across synthetic paper that, once dried, forms layered, globular structures giving the illusion of depth.
To rely solely upon the strangeness of these arrangements — which produce enjoyable images on their own — is one thing. But to push further, adding painted objects that heighten this intriguing pleasure, is a testament to Jovanovic’s sly artistry. Suggestive but ambiguous, the comedic mixture is sure to leave viewers with weak stomachs: some keeled over with laughter, others in discomfort. In fact, the best works in the show are those in which the artist leans full force into this exciting and funny dynamic — a visually repulsive interplay of hues and textures. There is no way to anticipate what might come next, like when convex and concave dimensions meet jawbreakers, hanky streamers and sausage links. It’s a party of oddball paraphernalia.
Take, for example, “Curtain Call,” a painting that forms a triplet of slippery shapes. The title, perhaps a reference to the painting’s visual content, resembles not only the velvety stage curtain of its namesake but also something eerily gory, like entrails spilling out of a body. Or, from another angle, a decadent vanilla ice-cream cake with strawberry filling left too long in the sun. In this series of works, either reading is just as likely. There is no rhyme or reason when phantasmagoric configurations of an anatomical nature meet light-hearted charm.
Vesna Jovanovich, “Sour Gummy Challenge,” 2023.
Down the hall, “Sour Gummy Challenge” takes a popular cavity-carrier and drops it into yet another amorphous environment. Emerging from a white boundary at the perimeter of a static but seemingly undulating unit, red and pink tunnels appear, resembling the tracks of an artery. Placed into this porous container, sour strips and rings delight in colorful contrast to the devilish background. Jovanovic is an expert at this degree of temptation — a bewildering badinage of seduction and offense. What exactly fashions our attention? Is it the absorbing quality of pairing disparate components? After all, opposites attract. Or is something further at stake in Jovanovic’s art? Maybe the real fixation isn’t simply the complement between two odd things, but rather that their relationship suggests a previously unanticipated symbiosis that never seemed probable. Humor positioned this way becomes a jovial aesthetic that both brings us out of our world and allows us to see our present anew. What is on the surface might be up to chance, but it is up to us to make sense of it all — to puzzle our way out of the mess. There are no circumstances out of our control.
Look once and you’ll be shocked. Look again and visual transgression will give way to an altogether new sight. With titles like “Trickster” and “Fooled You,” it is clear that Jovanovic is in on the game.
“Vesna Jovanovic: Carnival” is on view at Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave., through February 15, 2026.
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