In the Raw: The intense and dramatic portraits of Ivana Besevic

She's also inspired by cinema, particularly the way an actor will approach a character from a number of different angles, and tries to approach her portraits the same way. "I want people to look at my work and just feel things, simple as that," she explains. "I’m very intuitive, so I follow these feelings first and then I try to understand and explain them through my work."

She experiments a lot, she says, and that leads to constant changes in her style. "Sometimes I paint more expressive work, and sometimes more illustrative and neat work. What I care about most is the face and the expression. That's what I'd like the viewer to focus on most of all, so these areas are often painted with the most detail and attention, while the rest disappears in wider and more expressive brush strokes. I think these contrasts give dynamic and life to the piece."