We are nothing but stories… and here is (one of) mine:

I was born on a cold winter night, exactly at midnight, between two days. My mother — firmly rooted in reality — never let us believe in Santa Claus or tooth fairies, yet she named me “Sanja“ („she, who dreams“). My father made a „mistake“ in his attempt to raise me as a boy — an attempt that included judo lessons, boxing, and weight lifting — and took me to the theatre. These things: in-betweens, dreams, and theatre have guided the course of my life. Along with stories. Many of them.

My conscious journey of art-making began in 2020, at the start of the pandemic. I bought a school watercolour box with only one brush at a 1€ store (one of the rare things you were allowed to buy in those days). I needed it for an online course, Healing with the Arts. After the course, as shops opened again, I began buying and trying out new materials and started having a Wednesday art day with a dear friend. I remain under the spell of art-making. At the beginning of this journey, I made my inner critic out of clay and left it in the woods. Now, several years later, he still seems happy enjoying nature, and I can enjoy the process of creating. A day I get to make art is a good day.

I mostly create mixed-media collages. Beyond that, I experiment with other techniques such as block printing or ceramics. In my art, I am drawn to what is also connected to my work as a dramatherapist: nature, myths, tales, ritual, dreams, and womanhood. I am interested in what is hidden behind the veils, whispering to the imagination, rather than in what is immediately visible. I see the process of creating as a dialogue with worlds deep within and far beyond. This website is my attempt to let some of the visual stories I have made live lives of their own.

Sanja, December 2025