Miss Hay 2013

Dragan Ilić Di Vogo painted "Miss Hay", sometime after 1962. The painting presents us with a ballerina, seated, perhaps in a moment of contemplation, against a backdrop of cosmic imagery. The ballet has a long and complex relationship to social class, gender and power. In countries such as Serbia, where Di Vogo was born, ballet was long seen as a high art form and a cultural export, and was often supported by the state. Ballet dancers, particularly women, are often subjected to strict regimes of training and discipline, and they can face pressures to conform to certain ideals of beauty and femininity. The single rose lying discarded on the ground might be seen to allude to the ephemerality of beauty and fame. The setting is harder to pin down. The artist may be inviting us to think of the ballerina not as a real person in a real place, but as an ideal or a symbol. To understand this painting better, we would need to research not only the history of ballet but also the cultural politics of Serbia at the time the work was made.