Vesna Jovanovic is a Chicago-based artist whose work focuses on how we experience the world through our bodies and how society shapes these experiences. Having worked in various disciplines over the course of her career, including ceramics and photography, she is best known for her works on paper that feature poured ink combined with careful rendering.
Born in Chicago (1976) to working-class immigrant parents, Jovanovic spent most of her early childhood with disabilities from Polyarticular JIA. Her family moved to a coastal spa town in communist Yugoslavia to mitigate the illness, only to flee back to Chicago during the Yugoslav wars. She enrolled in a Chicago public high school and became fluent in English while adapting to the new culture. The first in her family to attend college, Jovanovic pursued a BA in Fine Arts (Ceramics) and later an additional BS degree in Chemistry, both at Loyola University Chicago. After graduation she worked in a laboratory while attending The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received a BFA in Studio Art. She also holds an MFA in Photography from The Ohio State University.
Jovanovic is a recipient of numerous artist residency fellowships including The Studios at MASS MoCA, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, VCCA France, Ucross Foundation, Santa Fe Art Institute, and a long-term studio residency at the International Museum of Surgical Science. Her artwork has been exhibited at The Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago), The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington), Spartanburg Art Museum, CoCA (Seattle), OSU Urban Art Space (Columbus), Metro Gallery at Reno City Hall, Haggerty Gallery at University of Dallas (Irving), and the International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago) among many other venues, and is included in permanent collections at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, International Museum of Surgical Science, and the Koehnline Museum of Art.