Miodrag Šćepanović, a Montenegrin sculptor of exceptional artistic sensibility, presented himself with the sculpture "Passion" at the Autumn Salon in Paris last month.
This is Šćepanović's jubilee - his tenth participation, and his success at this prestigious event was crowned in 2006 - with the Salon's First Prize, which was awarded to him for "Security" (sculpture in stone). Since 2008, this famous sculptor from Kolašin became a member of the "Autumn Salon" association.
The sculptor faces another Parisian challenge - a Salon dedicated mainly to French artists, but when it comes to Šćepanović's participation, an exception was made.
Vajar was born in 1953 in Kolašin. He finished elementary school and high school in his hometown, and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, in the class of prof. Miša Popović in 1983. He is a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro.
He has presented himself several times, and is a participant in numerous collective exhibitions and sculpture symposiums in the country and abroad. His creativity has been awarded numerous awards.
"At this year's Autumn Salon in Paris, I presented myself with the sculpture "Passion" that I executed in black stone. It was also my tenth presentation at one of the most renowned art events with a tradition of more than a hundred years."
"Six years ago, I won the First Prize of the Salon, and this year my work was chosen for the front page of the catalog accompanying the event. The Autumn Salon is extremely significant because it creates a kind of cross-section of the current art scene. From the numerous registered artists, the selectors choose about a hundred works that be exposed".
"I'm sorry that few of our artists apply for the Autumn Salon, somehow they miss those contests which are mostly in March or April. Although this year, besides me, Isidora Stamatović-Bigović and Momčilo Macanović presented themselves".
"Soon, at the end of the month (from November 27 to December 2), another Salon in Paris is waiting for me, which is more oriented towards French artists. For a long time I thought that I could not apply for the Salon of French artists because I received such information from our artists who they live in Paris. Years have passed and it turned out that artists from other countries also have the right to participate, although they are not numerous. This year, like last year, I will exhibit three stone sculptures".
Every new idea leads you to the bed of a special river and that's where the story begins...
"I grew up next to the river Svinjača. Even as a child I collected pebbles, and after the Academy I started using them to make mosaics. It was only later, when I got the tools, that I looked for a stone for sculpture. There is not much good because sculpture only looks for one that equal in composition, which has no cracks".
"And the bed of my river is steep, there is a big drop, and the stone is often broken, crushed. That is why my sculptures are not of large dimensions. Regardless of everything, that stone is interesting, has a good color, endures various interventions. I am proud of it , especially when I present myself in Paris and see that there is nothing like it".
In the creative process, how much do you rely on sketches and drawing templates?
"I made sketches at the very beginning. When the weather was bad, I knew how to draw and draw, but I didn't use any of those templates. It seemed to me like I was copying someone else's. I achieve the best results when I intervene directly. When the stone gets word... I am freer that way. When it is created in one breath, the sculpture has all the freshness of this world. I always try to realize my idea quickly. Changes follow because of possible small mistakes, but all this is corrected by ironing, polishing".
How much does the stone shape your thought, and how much does the thought shape the stone?
"If I want to preserve a stone, to preserve its size and all the beauty it carries, then I try to appreciate its thought. I prefer my thought to be shaped by a healthy stone, equal in composition, and its shape is not important to me at all. I have never been the problem is to give him all my ideas of which I have plenty".
Intimistic sculpture is your choice, and it is accompanied by safe and dosed interventions?
"While I work, I always follow the beauty of the line, the beauty of the form. The female figure is my preoccupation. I adapted a certain stylization to her that I think is appealing. Those small intimate sculptures must also carry a certain shine. They must be perfect, reduced, without burdensome details. The states of my heroes, their emotions, are captured in stone. There is no transparency, only hints that should awaken the deepest senses of the observer".
To shape a "Montenegrin" stone means...
"Earlier, artists finished their works, and now these works were somehow abandoned prematurely. Earlier, sculptors possessed an incredible strength that kept pace with demanding ideas, but today it is completely different. Few people can follow one Drago Đurović, one Stijović , Tomanović... Unfortunately, those great names, who dedicated themselves to intimate sculpture, are now in the shadows".
You have a specific atelier. As the first prize winner at the Autumn Salon in Paris, did Montenegro repay you with space, unlimited square footage?
"I work under the clear sky. When recently a group of tourists asked me - where do you create, I answered here, right there, under this willow tree. I received a plot of land from the Municipality of Kolašin where my studio was supposed to be located, but nothing came of it".
And when the exhibitions are over, when the Autumn Salon is over, where are your works exhibited?
"In a shack, in cardboard boxes, next to the house where I live. I have never received an invitation from the city where I live to make a permanent exhibition in some building. Simply, few people have an ear for such events. And it would be nice for visitors and tourists to see and our northern subtlety, and not to live in the long-established conviction that we only cut down forests".
Virtuoso processing and subtle feel
"Formats of camera dimensions and a limited motif repertoire are born from the stone, in which, as with Risto Stijović, the image of a woman as an introverted individual or a mother with a child in her arms, and the animal world dominates".
"In stylized, idealized forms freed from irrelevant details, he emphasized only the necessary features. From the compact mass of pure volume, organic forms are discretely distinguished, while the characters are reduced to possessed forms closed in their magical world".
"The facial features are transformed into an amorphous mass that conceals the figure of a muse, a saint, a heroine from ancient times or a petrified mask devoid of emotional expression, while the eyes are defined as cracks - incisions that point to a view turned towards virtual inner rhythms," she wrote about Šćepanović's sculptures. art historian Ljiljana Zeković.
The Ministry promised, but everything else was just words
"In 2006, when I won the First Prize of the Autumn Salon in Paris, I received a call from the Ministry of Culture. They asked me how much space I needed to work, and I suggested that it be a room of twenty square meters, where I would store the material."
"Otherwise, I drive it in a cart. No, they didn't accept such a small square footage, but promised me a bigger space. But I didn't get anything. I came to the Ministry a couple of times for an interview, but everything remained just words. Today, no one and he doesn't mention. The worst is when winter comes. That's when my studio disappears under the clear sky. I'm forced to work in the house, surrounded by my family."
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