Bodylandscapes


In this series of works I am thinking about people and their complex relationships. I painted contemporary society as bunches of bodies churned up in the space, whereby I left the room for different interpretations and ambiguous meanings. Often is hard to distinguish between a battle, explosion, ritual dance and orgy.

Inspiration was one of my favourite Goya's Caprichos (below), as well as my own experiences. Additionally, I had on my mind movies "Zabriskie Point" (M. Antonioni) and "Swimming with Sharks" (G. Huang), after which is one painting named.

Capricho #65, "Where is Mommy going?"

 

Stewing in own Juices, 2013. Oil on canvas, 60x100cm

Swimming with Sharks, 2013. Oil on canvas, 35x45cm

IT'S A GIFT – BERLIN ART FOR CHRISTMAS
13 December 2013 – 10 January 2014

 

OPENING: Friday, 13 December 2013 / 19 h
UNITED ARTS & DESIGN, Augsburgerstr. 39, 10789 Berlin 
Special Guests In Concert: The Hinking Sinking Ladies / 20 h

 

I take part with following small-sized works from the series "Bodylandscapes":

Tame my Flesh, 2013. Oil on canvas, 29x45,5cm

Greedy Dark Bunch, 2013. Oil on canvas, 25x35cm

Mouthful of Darkness, 2013. Oil on canvas, 29x41cm

Earthly Delights, 2013. Oil on canvas, 29x45,5cm

Hot Heads, 2013. Oil on canvas, 29x45cm

 

Bruises and Slush

Bruises and Slush, 2013. Oil on canvas, 150x200cm

Group exhibition "Das ist Walter" from 29.11 to 26.1.2014  in Prima Center Berlin, Biesentaler Strasse 24, 13559 Berlin

The exhibition of ex-Yugoslavian artists in Berlin. Exhibited with.
Below is the article about exhibition from newspapers "Vesti" and three works I take part with.

Swimming with Sharks, 2013. Oil on canvas, 35x45cm

Obscure Swinging, 2010. Oil on canvas, 35x45cm

Own Tears Own Fingertips, 2013. Oil on canvas, 35x45cm

"We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is a God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being."

Hermann Hesse

Where Roses Grow

Where Roses Grow, 2013. Oil on canvas, 160x200cm

Downfall. Collecting strength for a phoenix-like rise. As in the other works from this series, the surrounding of the figure reflects it's inside.

Andrei Tarkovsky on Arts, Life, Solitude

In Limbo

In Limbo, 2012. Oil on canvas 160x200cm

This painting was the first in the series of alone figures. The position of the body implies a slight movement of restlessness. The space reflects the inner state of the figure.

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela!
One of the greatest and most inspiring people ever <3

Street art by ESFP

                                               18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013

Solitude and loneliness have recently become one of my main interests in painting and generally. Some inspiring thoughts about them:

"Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man's personal value is large or small,--the wretch feeling, when he is alone, the whole burden of his misery; the great intellect delighting in its greatness; and everyone, in short, being just what he is."

from The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer

"Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony."

Douglas Coupland

Video by Shimi Cohen, quoting the words of Sherry Turkle from her TED talk "Connected, But Alone" and also based on Dr. Yair Amichai-Hamburgers hebrew article -The Invention of Loneliness.

"Licking Own Wounds" 2012. Oil on canvas, 150x200cm

Turquoise blue. Water as a healer. Solitude, too.
Collecting strength from the inner-self.

Toward a psychology of the artist. If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy. Frenzy must first have enhanced the excitability of the whole machine; else there is no art. All kinds of frenzy, however diversely conditioned, have the strength to accomplish this: above all, the frenzy of sexual excitement, this most ancient and original form of frenzy. Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings, all strong affects; the frenzy of feasts, contests, feats of daring, victory, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the frenzy in destruction, the frenzy under certain meteorological influences, as for example the frenzy of spring; or under the influence of narcotics; and finally the frenzy of will, the frenzy of an overcharged and swollen will. What is essential in such frenzy is the feeling of increased strength and fullness. Out of this feeling one lends to things, one forces them to accept from us, one violates them — this process is called idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealizing does not consist, as  is commonly held, in subtracting or discounting the petty and inconsequential. What is decisive is rather a tremendous drive to bring out the main features so that the others disappear in the process. In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever one wills, is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power — until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is — art. Even everything that he is not yet, becomes for him an occasion of joy in himself; in art man enjoys himself as perfection.
Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer   Friedrich Nietzsche

Influences


Michelangelo Buonarotti

"For me, the greatest inspiration that Michelangelo gives, is that you can use the body as the physical equivalent for yearnings and otherwise inexpressible feelings that are imagined."

Antony Gormley 

The Righteous Drawn up to the Heaven, detal from The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel

Beggars And Kings

In the evening

all the hours that weren't used

are emptied out

and the beggars are waiting to gather them up

to open them

to find the sun in each one

and teach it its beggar's name

and sing to it It is well

through the night

but each of us

has his own kingdom of pains

and has not yet found them all

and is sailing in search of them day and night

infallible undisputed unresting

filled with a dumb use

and its time

like a finger in a world without hands

W.S. Merwin

About my works

The focus of my work are human beings and their interpersonal relations. I observe them from differing perspectives and am making my own, nuanced take. These topics excite me since my early childhood: one of the reasons is surely the fact I grew up in former Yugoslavia, the land which was falling apart at the time, and already then I perceived relations between people as one of the most complex and entangled phenomena in existence.

 

Swimming With Sharks, 2013. Oil on canvas, 35x45cm

Furthermore, I am interested in a simple human being and his position in the contemporary world. Similarly to Francis Bacon, who said: "I would like my pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them, like a snail leaving its trail of the human presence... as a snail leaves its slime", I too am attempting to reach the human essence in my works. For that reason, I am trying to paint my experiences in life as faithfully as I can, which lead me to an important realization: the more true I remain to myself, the closer to the other one I get. People often recognize themselves in my works, and the basic human emotions we all feel: loneliness, love, pleasure, passion, sadness, desperation... Dealing with inner worlds interest me - a visualization of the invisible.

Fields of Dreams, 2013. Oil on canvas, 160x200cm

Life has never been as fast as it is nowadays, nor people so estranged and overwhelmed by all the images which surround us. So, what I really want is to give people a reason to pause, to reflect, to take a deep look into themselves. That is where the feelings are and that is what links us together. There we are the most vulnerable, there we are the closest to each other. Krzysztof Kieślowski once said:"There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us (...) We all fear the same way and the same things. And we love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division."

                                  

Decomposition, 2012. Oil on canvas, 200x250cm

In all my works I use both figuration and abstraction. My aim is to give a few directions to the viewer, without revealing the final destination or becoming too illustrative. I want to reassess, to restate the figure instead. In order to achieve that I use abstraction, whether to destroy or fragment the figure, to melt it down or make it disappear in the space. Figures are often appearing from and then disappearing back into an abstract space, which causes the feeling of constant flow within the painting.
The space, however, I don't consider to be a classical background. For me, it represents the internal of the figures. The spaces and the figures in most of my works are one being.

In Limbo, 2012. Oil on canvas 160x200cm