Inspired by NATO Bombing, Serbian Artist Turns Trauma into Art

The drawing depicts the head of a weird creature with a twisted neck and its mouth wide open. If you take a closer look, you notice a small bird flying out of its mouth. Its teeth look strange too, resembling tall, sturdy trees.

"You see, even the bird wanted to leave, it was that bad," Stojcetovic explains.

'Scream' is dated June 12, 1999, three days after the Kumanovo agreement which ended the Kosovo war was signed.

Stojcetovic's drawings, which have attracted regional and European attention, are not something that one would expect from an art academy graduate.

He only uses pen to create his works and makes what is called 'art brut' or 'outsider art', a term originally used to describe works by people outside the mainstream art world, such as psychiatric patients and children, and has also been dubbed 'naïve art'.

Stojcetovic now uses his art to help psychiatric patients in Serbia, but recalls how from 1997 onwards, his work helped him overcome his own difficulties in life.

"Back then I was drawing monsters. I wanted to draw things that are essentially surreal, that scare me. In that way I could somehow present the tension and madness I saw happening," Stojcetovic, who spent his childhood and youth in the Kosovo town of Urosevac/Ferizaj, tells BIRN.

"Those creatures were often anthropomorphic and zoomorphic beings. I also inserted symbols of cancer as an illness even if back then it wasn't that common as it is now. I drew screams, and butchered legs with a flower," he says. "I was drawing all day. Nothing else mattered."

When the NATO bombing started on March 24, 1999, Stojcetovic, who was then 24, spent days and nights taking refuge in a basement together with his family and neighbours - and his notebook and pen.<...