Hrvatski- With toes my legs are buried
In the ground like roots.
Rebellious
From the soil I uproot myself.
The constraint that has befallen us all requires creativity and skill in developing new ways of communicating, connecting and intimacy. Through artistic activity in public, I want to show my works and provide the observer with visual contact with the paintings and give him an insight into how one is created.
Physical limitations opened up new dimensions of coming to a solution for me. That is why it is necessary to encourage and develop creativity on an individual level as well as on the level of the social environment in which I live.
Hunt for inspiration
A step in a sitting position is a move, a line like a thread that I follow so I continue to create a direction in which I develop the idea and finally complete the painting. The idea usually appears in moments when due to various circumstances I fail to sketch it at the same time, but as I prepare the material or adjust the position to start painting, other, completely new ideas sparkle, which again develop in an unexpected direction when placed on the canvas. The work itself opens up new layers for me that I didn’t know I had. To me, the layers I open with a brush are like reading a book about colors. Come and read the paintings!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bt_g_p2kQc
Art Workshop Be a Part of Art In Galerry Šira
Color speech
The paint in the tube does not have its activity until I squeeze it out and apply it to the base. The embossed colors on the palette, in their expression from warm to cool, open up and give a boost through my visual contact with them for an idea I will develop on the background. The brush in my left foot is the communication link between me, the colors and their application to the void. The emptiness of the background is not a horror vacui but a space that gives me complete freedom to create it as the flow of painting leads me. Each part of the painted surface opens up an idea for me for further strokes and for color shades that will be in harmony with each other or, say, cold colors will highlight warm or dark will highlight bright. With such work, various combinations are opened that never end up strictly defined. Unpredictability in art is like a drop of rain – you never know where a drop will fall, you only know that everything will get wet.
Stick to the direction of the idea
Ideas for new paintings appear in unexpected moments, just when I don’t have anything to sketch. Soon that idea is lost but there is a subconscious memory in which a molten layer of all previous ideas remains. When I paint a certain picture, then new ones appear, I call them hybrid ideas, which arose from that subconscious, and then I have the opportunity to realize them at the same time while working on a completely different topic. That’s why I usually work on two paintings in the studio at once. The paintings can be completely different topics, but then it is important to me, through the arrangement of easels and palettes with paints and brushes, that everything is as it suits me best at the foot, on the floor. So I dedicate myself completely to each image and automatically adapt to the subject I am painting. In this work, I then manage the realization of my ideas in paintings until their completion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36VQiSdzfPk
Visitors as part of my creative work
While painting in the studio, I lose the sense of the passage of time except when I cast an eye on the clock and am surprised at how much time has passed, sometimes more, sometimes less. People who stop in front of the studio window to look at my paintings and what I do, have become part of my painting process. So I put my creative work and the inner, intimate part from which I draw ideas and motivation on the shop window, towards the street and the casual observer. So, in addition to paintings, I also exhibited my work on creating new paintings. An exhibition of my paintings and ways of working is always open while I am in the studio. Spectators in front of the shop window and visitors are always part of my creative work.
New Year – a review of what was painted in the past year
Our vision of the passage of time led us to the New Year 2022 and this led me to look back a little on the past year and everything I have painted through that time. I will not list the total number of painted paintings, it would be dry and impersonal, and because I actually want to highlight the interior artwork I have invested in my works in the studio where I have been painting for the last year. With each stroke of the brush, I discovered new ideas that I realized. Painting through this time, it seemed to me that I was moving it forward like that. In the new studio, where everything is completely adapted for my work, I am completely in painting and I am now observing the results on the walls and in the windows of the studio. This result of last year’s work forces me to create new works and I am happy to be able to exhibit everything new in the studio immediately.
Moving back and forth through time
This is the first painting I painted this year and I made the sketch about ten months ago. So the sketch stood on paper because of the other paintings. In watercolor on paper I painted a car, an oldtimer Buick Phaeton from the 1930s. This is the time of the beginning of the development of the car industry and the use of fossil fuels which is today the biggest cause of climate changes. However, that period is also the beginning of modern society with all its disadvantages and advantages. The oldtimer is a symbol of the innocent expectation from all the discoveries of the twentieth century that our future will be better than the past. Today we expect a better tomorrow in stopping the pollution of nature and developing in accordance with it. Let’s use the oldtimer as the design of that time to design our way of life in harmony with nature. Let the past move us forward, in better and cleaner times, not to spin in a circle.
Oldtimer Buick Phaeton, watercolor on paper, 53×73 cm/Oldtimer Buick Phaeton, akvarel na papiru, 53×73 cm
Flickering
It is an intuitive search for the synergy of colors and forms in consciousness and spontaneity. Blue tones of lighter and darker intensity dominate the space and with yellow, orange and red dots move and create a reflection of the emotional state at the moment of creative creation.
Golden Cut
I knew how important the work environment was, the studio. I painted in various spaces, from those where I did not have any conditions, plein air and, of course, in public spaces, on the streets and in art workshops that I led. Everywhere I painted, I attracted attention because of the way I paint, and I certainly never intended to emphasize my work by painting with my foot and thus lose the attention that paintings need. Still, I will never hide it, because it is a part of me. If that can be a motivation for anyone, why not! Today, when I create in the studio, which I have adapted so that I can dedicate myself to my work, and at the same time through the shop window be visible to anyone who stops on the street watching my painting, I managed to harmonize paintings and foot painting. My way of working does not go beyond what I painted because the pictures are in the shop window and the first ones attract attention while I am only visible in the background behind the easels. I found my golden ratio.
Sunset, acrylic on canvas, 50×150 cm/Zalazak, akril na platnu, 50×150 cm
A Lighthouse of Paints
When I paint a new picture, I often forget about some of the pictures I painted before. When I paint them, I put most of them on display so passers-by can see them. Among all those who stop by to look at the pictures, the most interesting thing for me is when the children stand in front of the shop window, most often with their parents. When the pictures catch their attention, although I appreciate anyone who wants to look at the pictures, these little people with their questions to their parents and comments about the pictures are a sincere compliment to me for my work. The children who stand in front of the shop window looking at my paintings in today’s age of virtual, electronic glare with which they are illuminated from various screens mean a lot to me in that it is a guide to how much colour can have its value. The clean and open colours of the paintings on the shop window for observers are a combination of mutual interest, mine for a new search in painting and theirs as an observers of paintings. I painted a few motifs with cars for some other purposes and exhibited them on the window as before, not thinking that such motifs could be interesting to children. After a while, I noticed that the neighbour’s child regularly stood in front of the window to look at the pictures even after I removed them to put the new ones. Recently the child’s mother told me that her son regularly stops by to look at pictures in the shop window. Colours are our common lighthouse.
May there be peace
I transfer the moment of imagination into colors and paint a picture. I present the same picture and the observers are the ones who absorb the colors with their eyes. What influences me and my paintings from the environment I turn towards the bright side of the palette. Dark spectrum colors are always important, they intensify light colors, without them the strength of the light side is lost. In stormy, difficult times, a bright spot is sought; I seek and give a bright spot in the paintings to all who observe them.
Waves of inspiration
Everyday work in the studio on the waves of inspiration is finally, when the painting is finished, placed in a shop window, like debris on the shore. Time flows quickly with a brush between my fingers, while I draw a layer of paint on the surface of the canvas, I enter the course of time, so I have the impression of time in the creation of the painting. The finished picture in the shop window is noticed by passers-by. The attention of the observer connects his time with the picture.
The pleasure of reaching the goal
Visitors to the studio often ask me if I am very tired of painting, because of the way I paint, with my left foot. I answer such questions by comparing them to marathoners who run so many kilometres in order to experience the complete satisfaction of running to the finish line. Fatigue is negligible compared to the pleasure I experience when I finish painting. Efforts must be made for any goal. It goes without saying that some kind of physical exertion is needed to realize anything. I forget that my painting with left foot gives people the impression of heavier weight than the usual use of hands. They are right that it is harder but with various creative solutions I have made it easier for myself to work to the point that I don’t have to think about it.
Friendship through art can change the world
It is my pleasure to participate in the international group exhibition in the Italian city of Ascoli-Piceno. The exhibition is organized by the AthensArt The International Arts Festival under the slogan ‘Friendship through art can change the world’. I am happy to be part of a circle of people who want to ‘sow’ the seeds of the positive, the good around the world through art. The exhibition runs from April 7 to May 15, 2022.
Sunset Flame, acrylic on canvas, 50×60 cm/Plamen sunčevog zalaska, akril na platnu, 50×60 cm
Golden Shadows
The painting is painted in the glow of heat with which the yellow color radiates and fills the movements of the brush in various directions. As a symbol of the sun from which we live, it is gold that is priceless. Under the shadow of that gold we are on the move and living under that free and most valuable treasure. Today, when we are brought to a turning point where we have to change the source of energy, we just need to indulge in every day that the sun creates and our energy is inexhaustible.
A Source of Emotion
The central yellow shape with a bright core spreads in various directions, nonlinearly, breaking through the red and green shapes that surround it. The light in the middle is a representation of the inner energy that must come out and motivate us to act by internal and external forces. We all have that strength. Our inner energy is the starting point from which each of our activities starts and thus radiates its action around us. Let it radiate bright and good, it suits us all, no one minds and we get the beauty of living.
Light Vibrations
The city of Zagreb at night, when the lights flicker in various intensities of light, awakens a deeper and more intimate life. The dots and lines of light live through their sounds of colour as the night absorbs and calms that whole life to silence and sleep. The light impression of the city at night encourages the rhythm of music and calmness to sleep. People make the city what it is and the city shapes people into its appearance, sounds and smells. We created the world of the city, it also shapes us in its own way, and in that harmony, we dream at night together with the lights and darkness of the city.
