FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTEBOOK (2)

“Process”- External (technical)

For the last fifteen years, with very few exceptions, my paintings are in various shades of grays. Subtle “temperature” variations in those grays are achieved either with red or blue glazes over neutral gray tones, under painted with black, white, red or blue and then painted over with neutral gray tones, or simply by mixing very small amounts of pure red and blue with white and black pigments. Even using different white or black pigments can make grays wormer or colder. Led or zinc oxide is wormer than brilliant, but much colder titanium oxide. With very few exceptions, I am using only four basic colors with slight variations in pigment origin. Black paints are Mars Black (Iron oxide) and Scheveningen Black (Carbon, also called “Bone Black”). White paints are Zinc or Titanium oxides and very rarely Lead oxide, which I use only for under painting. Reds in extremely small amounts are either Quinacridone (Alizarin Crimson) or Cadmium red. Blues are Old Delft Blue, two Phthalocianine kinds, (Scheveningen Blue and “Prussian” Blue) and Deep Cerulean Blue (Cobalt, Chromium and Aluminum oxides). There is also a small, lonely tube of Deep Cadmium Yellow, made of almost 100% Cadmium Sulphide. It is a bit poisonous and I used just one third of that small tube very sparingly for the last ten years, not because it is poisonous but because I use yellow in microns and molecules. All those paints are made by “Old Holland”, old fashion way, in cold pressed, natural and pure linseed oil and pure pigments without any “fillers” or additives. Brushes are always of the best quality, in various, different and specific sizes and shapes, depending on the structure, weight and size of the canvas and the “subject matter” painted. I always use only the best tools and materials available today. When this world ends, I want my paintings and drawings to be in excellent shape…

FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTEBOOK (3)

“Process“ - Inspiration/Motivation (internal/external/technical)

Inspiration is a human face or a body, but subject matter is inconsequential, it could be anything. Initial stage of the painting or drawing is calculated, calm and simple, with a clear subject matter. Fragmentation and chaos follows, sometimes only to lead right back to the calculated and calm beginning which would be, inevitably, fragmented again. Different “poetics” are developing in the process, intentionally or unintentionally dependent to the painting process itself. Few hours of painting today could take any direction tomorrow, either to more fragmentation and complication or to clearing and simplification of the fragmentation painted yesterday. Extremes of opposites, symbiosis of sharp and soft, stillness and motion, bright and dark and a range of different temperature grays in between are originating and becoming visible. All those opposites can find the balance only in the process of painting and they cannot be devised, formulated or arranged in advance. In that process, separate rhythms, “plays” and fragmentations of the forms, lights, shadows and structures are developing and starting to evolve and deviate to different directions, somehow becoming independent from the initial “subject” matter.

It seems to me that there is never end to that process and in it I find the joy of painting that prevents me from declaring a painting “finished”. That is why my paintings are only in different stages, depending on where and when I decided to stop painting them. I am aware that rational decision must be made sooner or later: when to stop? But my paintings are never “finished”…

FRAGMENT FROM THE NOTEBOOK (4)

About statement and “statements” in general

(Excerpts, notes, fragments, etc. )

“…How do you explain how, what and why do you paint? How do you squeeze that into words, sentences and paragraphs? Is it possible to box in all the love, silliness, passion, artfulness, absurdity, deception, fear, sympathy, affection, inventiveness, stupidity, sentimentality, idiocy, machination, ingenuity, lunacy, empathy and duplicity in a hundreds of millions of brush strokes and graphite treads over a lifetime… in a few sentences?...”


“…Perhaps it is possible, if you are a good writer. Words are like water, and like water they pass from mouth to mouth but they never quench the same kind of thirst. Hemingway wrote a short story using only six words and I am sure I could make a drawing using only one line. Or just one, small pencil dot in the middle of the white paper? But what would be the point? Why would I ever want to do that? I want a drawing with six hundred thousand lines…”


“…And how many “one dot in the middle” type of drawing I would need to draw? How many explanations, words, absurd instructions and manuals would be needed to get people to notice what was I thinking or not thinking at all? All that nonsense is great, but once you start to paint a black, white or any blank, single color painting or draw one small dot on the paper or start arranging an absurd, idiotic silliness in shapes of “performances” and piles of different things, or hire other people to paint, draw or sculpt instead of you, the more hollow, insincere, phony and pretentious statements are required. That’s the end of it and you’ve got to find some way other than to paint and draw, in order to express your absence of talent, any feelings and all that horrible, thoughtless void of everything. Perhaps, create music without any sound? Play on a string instrument without any strings? Maybe write a novel without any words... ”


“… The more visual art becomes a synthetic and simulated mimicry of the beautiful, cultured, creative and imaginative, the more worded and hollow explanations and instructions are required. Today, there is a whole new adroit business made out of that comedy. Prophets of this monumental High Art hoax and their lamed acolytes have had labeled just about anything and everything in Art today, like a produce: by type, content, value, ingredients, month, year and expiration date. Contemporary Art scene today is like a huge, global supermarket: profitable, predictable, explained, expected, defined, institutionalized, established, entrenched and totally meaningless. However, when it comes to Art, managers of this global Art Supermarket are like cuckolded husbands: always last to find out…”


“…I don’t need much in order to paint and I draw, just a little bit of solitude and peace which I can get for not too high price. And most importantly, I always use only the best tools and materials available today. When this world ends, I want my paintings and drawings to be in good shape…”
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Graduated at Belgrade University of Arts (Academy of Fine Arts, Painting Department).
Diploma (1988) awarded by the University of Arts, following a fife-year program in Fine Arts, with a major in Painting and Art history. Participated in over hundred juried group exhibitions in Europe and United States (mostly in New York City) and several independent exhibitions. Lives and works in New York City.





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