Stefanovic builds up the layers of colour with egg tempera. Stefanovic left Sydney when he was 20, and travelled around Europe. He spent much of his early 20s in Rome, where he dabbled in abstract painting. A Serbian Orthodox, he went to Bari in Southern Italy to see the relics of his family's patron saint, St Nicholas. It was that visit that set him on his path.
Faith plays a part.
Soon after, he went to Greece and visited the Holy Mountain, a monastic democracy on the Halkidiki peninsula in Macedonia. There are no roads, no shops and no women on the Holy Mountain. The nearest city is Salonika. Stefanovic presented himself at a 12th-century Serbian monastery, where the welcome was, well, ambiguous. He and his travelling companion were met with shoulder shrugs.