Sanja Todorović - Instagram Takeover

Hi there everybody. My name is Sanja and I am the current artist in residence at Draíocht’s Artist Studio. I’m very happy to be invited to do this Insta takeover and to have the chance to introduce you to some of my work. So, all this week I’ll be doing my shtick on here.

I was a painter for a good few years before I started making the kind of work that I make now. I studied painting in NCAD here in Dublin and then at the RCA in London. I have always liked working with my hands, I like being close to the materials but the turn to needlework really came out of necessity: Dublin is woeful when it comes to studio spaces (which is why Draíocht’s is so nifty!) and I needed a creative outlet. Needlework is an intimate practice: I do it out of the box room and it folds away into a shoebox.

I applied for the studio here because I really wanted to move the work out of the house for even just a little while. Firstly, it’s nice to have somewhere to go every day; secondly, it’s very useful to see the work all together in one big space; and thirdly, Draíocht gives me money to be here which means that I could take a summer break from one of my part-time jobs to concentrate on what really matters: buying stuff!

This first post is about some of the stuff that I bought since I started here in early June.

Hello all. Today I will share a few images of the kind of work that I’ve been making in the last few years.

I started to properly make embroideries in 2019. I remember it well because I had a very broken ankle at the time and I was making the journey on the 39A bus from Blanch down to Grangegorman on account of a residency I was doing in TUD that summer. It turned out to be a very productive couple of months and my preoccupation with needlework has been ballooning ever since.

I haven’t made many pieces because they take a very long time to finish. I am also entirely self-taught which means that simple stuff takes me twice or three times longer than someone who knows what they’re at. However, I have found that the pace suits me and the amateurish, hobby-like feel to the work benefits it.

Hi all. We’re midway through. Today I will barrage you with things that are ancillary to my practice.

At the end of the day I am an image maker and as such, I am very invested in images. I even prefer images of sculptures, rather than the sculptures themselves. I am a great hoarder of images, like that guy Aby Warburg, except I have access to the internet! When I started making the embroideries I was specifically looking at heraldry and vexillology and these peculiar WWII memorials dotted around the former Yugoslavia, but my interests are wide and unpredictable to me so I try to keep it intuitive and I try to remain receptive.

OK we’re getting there. Today I’ll show you some stuff that I’m working on in the studio.

I have a few things on the go because, although I have great stamina for long hours of detailed work, I do need a bit of variation now and again. I particularly like to switch between making “slow” and “fast” work. For example, embroidery is always slow. I have an oversize knee-high silk stocking that I knitted just before I started the residency and that I have been embroidering ever since. I will be lucky if I get the thing finished by the time I’m out of here at the end of the month.

Conversely, the tufted piece that is on the stretcher is relatively fast because it is more deliberate: the image is simply drawn on and I use an electric tufting machine to fill in the shapes.
Notebook work can be either. The collage works on the wall ditto. They look fast but they’re slow.

It’s Friday thank God!

Thanks to everyone who checked in with me this week and a very special thank you to Draíocht staff for their help and support. You’re all deadly!

I leave you with a few pics of what really matters to me: the cats in my life.