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Mariana Mezic: To the beat of her own drum

The beat of her own drum

Story by Petra de Mooy. Photography by Matthew Symons.

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Page left: ‘Angelina’. Above: ‘Ode to Charlie’.

‘Come on, let’s do this,’ says Mariana Mezic as we sit down for our interview at Valley of Yore cafe in Myponga. She’s just wandered down from upstairs, where she’s recently established her studio. She marvels at her luck in finding this space in the former Myponga cheese factory, finding her artistic home in a room filled not only with natural light but also in a building with the energy and creativity of good people and good things coming together.

Mariana was born in South Australia in a very traditional, first- generation Croatian family. She struggled with the dichotomy between her strict home environment and school life. ‘They wanted the best for us, but if I came home and said I wanted to be an artist – that didn’t go down well,’ she shares. ‘A bullshit artist’ her mother would say. But young Mariana felt drawing was the only thing she was good at. Mariana remembers her school years as being very hard but credits one of her art teachers with helping to nurture her confidence in a sea of unease. Even with this guidance, a life as an artist still felt out of reach. Instead, after finishing school Mariana pursued work in hospitality and went down what she now reflects on as a fairly traditional path, meeting her husband Matthew (Matt) Symons and starting a family in their twenties. ‘I was a homemaker. I’d bake and sew and decorate the house and shit. Being there for your children – I just thought that is what you did. My husband would come home at the end of the day and I’d have a nice meal ready,’ she says.

It wasn’t until Mariana was 40 and pregnant with her fourth child that she found her way back to art. The intervening years had been challenging, with Matt struggling with substance abuse and depression. But amongst it all they found shared interests. Matt brought home a book called The Lost Diggers by journalist Ross Coulthard. The book reproduces the portraits of young World War I diggers from glass photographic plates rediscovered a century after they were taken. The hardship these soldiers faced spoke to Mariana: if they could withstand those experiences, then her own struggles must be conquerable too. >

Top left: ‘Heiwa’. Top right: Work in progress. Bottom left: Mariana Mezic standing in front of ‘Big Wonder’. Botton right: ‘Kapitan Betty’.

Mariana began to painstakingly draw – in HB pencil – massive pictures of soldiers. Her friend, Sally Francis, who worked for Art in Health at the Flinders Medical Centre, recognised Mariana’s talent and the therapeutic aspect of her work. She insisted they go on display in one of their Promenade Galleries. Ross Coulthard opened the exhibition and her father also came along. It meant a lot to Mariana that he was proud of her. The exhibition elicited a visceral response from those who experienced it. ‘There was a bit of hype,’ Mariana recalls.

‘That work is really meaningful to me still,’ she says of the 2014 exhibition. ‘Flinders has a piece they purchased on permanent display and I still get people contacting me saying, “I saw your work and my father was in the war.” It resonates.’ This exhibition and the accolades, sales and positivity that followed it catalysed Mariana’s artistic reawakening, but her father dying shortly after also had an impact. ‘That’s when my whole career properly started because, shit, we are all gonna die … I got that memo,’ she says. Going to the beat of her own drum, Mariana ‘tried to go to art school’ but found the constructs of the training challenging. She just wanted to make her own work and not field the questions from ‘above’. She has forged her own path – a solid path – for one who is not bound by tradition any longer.

Mariana began to introduce colour in her work and to create images of women – a subject matter she never tires of and continues to explore. She decided she wanted to be a strong woman and project strength through her work. Her large drawings consistently depict a solitary figure. They appear to be multicultural, from here, there and everywhere: American Indian, African, Asian, medieval, spiritual, otherworldly. Often they’re looking to the sky or gazing back at you. There is joy and pain in them; the water colour paint that drips down may be a symbol of the tears shed but now they’re looking ahead. There is a beautiful use of colour and decoration, little patches of flowers, feathers, stars, birds. They are both bold and delicate. Mariana signs her work boldly MEZIC. She is here now.

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