Predrag Pajdic

Predrag Pajdic (born 1965) is a London-based artist, art historian and curator. He is the founder and editor of the art photography blog "The Pandorian," and his work has been shown internationally and at solo and group exhibitions worldwide. He also writes about and lectures on contemporary art, photography and fashion.

Early years Pajdic was born to Serbian parents in Slavonski Brod, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia, as one of three children. As a child he was fascinated by his grandfather, a talented bagpipe, violin and cuckoo-clock maker and a father who ran a successful cast iron company. His creative curiosity began at an early age and encompassed a range of influences. As a child, he would imitate birds' songs, collect feathers, mushrooms, flowers and talk to plants and animals.

Professional life After high school, he moved to London to study fashion design at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design, graduating in 1994. He also attended Courtauld Institute of Art where he earned a master's degree in art history. Following graduation, he began experimenting with materials from tinsel to toilet paper for creations that appeared in video clips, on stages, in films and in New York's Metropolitan Museum.

During the photo shoot, Pajdic spent time wandering Athens accumulating more than 10,000 shots and observing the city's contrasts. "I was confronted with two very contrasting sides of the city: one was contemporary and young, and the other was ancient, steeped with the kind of history you cannot escape. I swear, the first time I went up to the Acropolis I felt I was closer to heaven than I've ever been in my life." Pajdic has said his inspirational sources include Leonardo da Vinci, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Jean Cocteau.

Shows and exhibitions

Pajdic's artwork can be found at the British Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He was also one of the judges for the prestigious South African contemporary art award Spier Contemporary 2007. His work has been shown internationally in various solo and group exhibitions, including: 'Delay', Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2004); 'To whom it may Concern', nn Foundation for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2004); 'The Presidency', Exit Art, New York (2004); 'Memory', Salina Art Center, Salina (2004); 'Garden' Castle Vault, Southampton (2004); 'Terrorvision', Exit Art, New York (2004), 'Blackout', Salon of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade (2003). In 2010, Pajdic curated Lingering Whispers, a London exhibition of 40 international artists hunting for alternative ways of expression during a worldwide economic crisis. In 2011, About 20 Victorian glass plates were discovered in an attic of a home in Texas, United States. Once cleaned from 100 years of dust, they revealed images of children from a portrait studio. Pajdic partnered with Santa Fe artist Alexandra Eldridge on a project called "There Is No Such Thing As The End," which re-imagined those images on vintage Chinese scrolls through a palimpsest of painting, printing, collage and drawing. Eldridge and Pajdic described the project as a way to bridge the world of the living with that of the dead.

His curatorial projects include Paranoia, Leeds City Art Gallery, 2006, an exhibition of 40 international artists; Recognise, Contemporary Art Platform, London 2007, with more than 40 international artists whose work relates to the Middle East; Paranoia, The Freud Museum London, 2007; This Day, Tate Modern, London, 2007, an eight-part film program about the Middle East; and Dogma, HDLU, Zagreb, Croatia, 2009, a group exhibition with international artists. In 2010 and 2011 Pajdic was The Artistic Director of The International Festival of Contemporary Arts, City of Women, which takes place every October in Ljubljana, Slovenia each year representing works of 60 influential female artists in fields of performance and visual art.

Beneath the Shadow the Soul Walks During the summer of 2012, Pajdic announced the release of Beneath the Shadow the Soul Walks, an illustrated book featuring 116 images by the artist and eight original stories by JL Nash. According to the artist, the book "celebrates the loveliness in everyone, at all ages, gender, style, type and appearance. What is presented are the purest of naked souls echoed in the faces and bodies of some of the most extraordinary people from across U.S.A., Europe and Asia taken over the period of a year to catch all seasons." More than 70 subjects, ranging in age from 10 to 84, were photographed for the book.