In her paintings Bathers, which depict a group of women on a beach, from their expressions and stances, we can observe that they are not actually sunbathing. These women stand provocatively, as if competing with the sun in beauty and radiance, defiantly exposing their lavishly colorful, multi-hued costumes and their tanned, bare bodies. It’s as if their stance says to the sun: “You are light, you are fiery, you are the source of life, but we are all that too! You can’t do anything to us, bright sun, our colors are more vivid!” That could be the title of the painting. In the series Roadside Graves, beneath the masterfully subtly painted translucent veils of time, the faces of those distant warriors, buried by the roadside and mourned by countless passersby, can be glimpsed. We do not recognize their faces, but death and sorrow are deeply inscribed in the painting, and that is the primary theme of the work. Equally intriguing are the small sculptures titled Tree Memory. These are pieces of wood, on whose sides are painted parts of portraits that, if aligned correctly, form a person's face; but if they are randomly assembled, they create a somewhat comical, almost theatrical mask game. This play is the context of the work. Sonja Radan paints things, phenomena, groups not just to document their existence. She paints a rose not to confirm and glorify the beauty of its petals but to capture its scent, and, what is most astonishing, she succeeds in doing so.

Vida Ognjenović (excerpt from Volcanic Origins of Color and Line) Vulkansko poreklo boja i linija)