Maja Maljević was born in Belgrade, the capital of what today is Serbia, in 1973. She began to consider herself an artist from as early as high school, when she decided to study within the design department in preparation for tertiary studies in the arts. Acceptance into the University of Arts Belgrade depended on producing a portfolio of sufficient quality to meet the stringent demands of the faculty. Once accepted, a grueling seven years of training followed, of which the first few years consisted purely of academic and classical arts education – drawing and painting from life, the nude, portraiture, still life and the attendant classical theory. Once this solid traditional foundation had been laid, the fledgling artists were set free to discover for themselves what kind of practitioners they wanted to be. For Maljević, like so many artists post-1863, this meant unlearning how to draw – as Picasso famously quipped, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” (text from: http://davidkrutprojects.com/artists/maja-maljevic)

Image of Maja from: http://www.davidkrutpublishing.com/3739/maja-maljevic-at-dkw-2/2008-07-31-003