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"Airtight"
series of paintings , 2007 , 50x60x3 cm ,120x100x3 cm , acrylic,
oil, spray, marker on canvas. |
"Where`s my chicken?" series of paintings, 2005, 40x50x3 cm, 120x140cm, 100x150cm, acrylic, spray, marker on canvas . Galerie Open Atelier `De Vrijplaats`, Amsterdam |
Postgraduate
show,
2002, 120x140 cm , 80x60cm .. oil ,enamel on canvas. |
"Unbearable sweetness of cynism" While being visually sweet, I actually protest in a funny manner, like Isabella Rosellini would do. One way of possesing good manners is to insult in apparently harmless, charming way while at the same time raising very serious political and sociological questions. The common thread is visually saturating invitation for contemplation about more fundamental questions of current day issues. Even if I can not suggest a solution at least I have to put up a question.
"AIRTIGHT" In an overblown, commercialized and thereby distorted reality a few experiences, like sex for instance, still have the directness and authenticity.
There is no spin doctor to implant us the opinion of our own sexual experience, in a way it makes it a secret garden of our consciousness.
By longing to experience directly we subsequently all get back to naked reality, however ugly it might be.
My colors are toned down to a few but vibrant ones, representing an outside viewer as a biased spirit, unable to see the true colors of the happening itself, call it a voyeuristic impulse if you please…
No logo, no media, no promotion, no intrusion on someone else's mind…Privacy and authenticity have to be restored in order to start responding to world in a non-automated, blasé, inhibited manner..
Chicken street is the main street in Kabul , Afghanistan. People there have seen two mightiest military forces marching through it recently , but still wondering: What`s in it for me ?In Pushtu language , rich with allegories ,one say it as WHERE IS MY CHICKEN? On a much larger scale , an artist sees the intensive interaction between cultures , all under a clout of globalisation , and wonders whether blending can enrich us all spiritually and economically , or make our minds more uniform , like the clothes of marching armies . The two separate concepts of time are clashing , illustrated as gray scale cowboys (their mindset : YOU ARE WITH US OR AGAINST US ) on the background of traditional , subtle and allegoric forms and colors of sleepy , and essentially Islamic , Central Asia..As Paul Virilio stated in his magistral work SPEED AND POLITICS : Western man has appeared superior and dominant, despite inferior demographics , because he appeared more rapid .....Speed is the hope of the West .
(from the MA thesis)
..For instance,
palms denote nature, tourism, warmth-success, a cheetah is wilderness,
speed, danger-pleasure, a camel represents travel, adventure, exoticism-desire.
What is common for tourism and eroticism is the act of approaching nature
and ourselves; the disclosure of the confined and movements towards those
close to us, towards another person. All the senses become active and
everything aspires to overcome estrangement. Healthy functioning requires
ability to become close and to distance oneself. The removal of one's
attire is a pre-condition for eroticism. Nudity is truth about man, but
also a symbol of pleasure or meeting one' bodily (instinctive) needs.
It is necessary to remove a taboo in order that we reveal ourselves in
our need to satisfy our primeval desire. An uncontrolled hedonism is a
mystery and social morals serve to prevent the revelation of that mystery.
Man is frightened of the biological drives within himself. In fact, man
is an animal which does not lose control over himself, which acknowledges,
recognition being a release. I do not think one should be freed for the
sake of relief, but for the sake of pleasure. A persistant search for
pleasure and the evasion of unpleasent things and emotions represents
a hedonistic logic, however, unpleasant things we must tolerate in order
to adapt successfully impose themselves in the world that surrounds us.
Pleasure is by no means an end but the consequence of the realisation
of an end(desire)...
Tea Popovic