The works of Goran Ćetković will soon be in Kotor

Undisputed talent and creative strength since the days of the Cetinje Academy, the painter Goran Ćetković (41) from Bar was crowned this Sunday in the most beautiful way possible - with the traditional annual award of the ULUCG "Milunović, Stijović, Lubarda", for the oil painting "Philosopher" ".

"The reactions of the public are very positive, I still receive congratulations from colleagues and acquaintances, as well as from fellow citizens who do not know me personally. The satisfaction is all the greater because the international jury is behind the award decision," Ćetković told "Vijesti".

An art pedagogue at the Elementary School "Kekec" in Sutomor and at the Secondary Economic and Hospitality School in Bar, native of Kolašin, Ćetković graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje in 2000 in the class of Professor Nikola Gvozdenović-Gvozd. In addition to the professional one, he is also a laureate of the award of the FLU and the "Spinaker" gallery from Herceg Novi at the exhibition of students in the final year of studies. He has 17 independent exhibitions, and the eighteenth is being prepared for the City Gallery in Kotor, where it will be opened on April 7. The backbone of this exhibition will be portraits from the previous exhibition "Voices of Silence", along with twenty new works.

In Kotor, unfortunately, the public will not see "The Philosopher" because it is still on display in the gallery of the Association of Fine Artists in Podgorica. This work explicitly points to the basic peculiarities of Ćetković's artistic practice since his student days: it is figurative painting, whether it is a nude or a portrait. With strong brushstrokes and color, Ćetković introduces the viewer to the psychology of the person he paints, with the emphasis being on emotion and symbolism in his recent works.

"My goal is to bring the work and the human face to the strongest possible expression, to pure expression. 'Philosopher' is the figure of a thinker who concretizes everything that I strive for in painting, the conveyed strength and clarity of expression, speaks of the spiritual sphere - the sublimity of man in an unusual way. In the foreground is a figure with perspective foreshortening, it is viewed from a frog's perspective, it is viewed from above. Another important component of the picture is the background, in which there are verticals that symbolize spirituality", adds Ćetković.

The recognizability of his work also lies in the way he uses the color blue. It is predominant in the works from all his creative phases, in itself, as he describes it, it is a symbol of spirituality and the sky and the universe, "and yet, it also indicates the passage of time, transience".

When asked by "Vijesti" whether after "The Philosopher" and the award there might be a transformation of his artistic poetics, i.e. rounding off this creative phase and moving to a new expressive and thematic field, Ćetković replied that "everything is possible". "It's obvious from what I've been doing lately that I'm approaching the limits of abstraction, which again shows that pure artistry is of the greatest importance to me," Ćetković concluded.