As part of the Winter Scene of the Bar Annals, the exhibition "Voices of Silence" by the award-winning painter Goran Četković, who lives and works in Sutomore, was staged in King Nikola's Castle until April 15.
This is a new series from the cycle of the same name that was presented to Barani in 2016, and which for the author is "one step further", with numerous large formats that, he says, were challenging for him as a painter. Ćetković reveals to "Vijesti" why he did not paint large formats before.
"Honestly, through conversations with colleagues and friends, we came to that topic. Acquiring circumstances, I acquired larger blind frames and canvases and set off. I used to do larger paintings before, about a decade ago. But I'm not a slave to the format, for me a good picture is a good picture, regardless of the size. I certainly deal with the same subject matter as in my small and medium format paintings, it's the same story, but some changes are desirable, which would make what I do even better, I think this has now borne fruit and quality", says Četković.
In addition to the format, in the previous year of his creation, the artist also changed the color of his canvases.
"For me, it all comes spontaneously. Simply, the colors are there on the palette, where my eye goes, and then my hand. It is true that my painting is associated with blue, which is dominant, it is the color of the universe. Each of my heads on the canvas is a universe unto itself, its own universe, unencumbered by any details, all with the aim of making that central motif come to the fore. I certainly express what I want to say through the dark-light relationship, through the psychological nuances of the characters," continues Ćetković.
Regardless of the novelties, technically, his gesture remained the same.
"That handwriting of mine, a gesture, a stroke with a brush, remains recognizable. It is a wide brush, it gives strength to my works, without it my painting is unimaginable. Of course, what I strive for, which can be seen at first glance in my works, are elements of expressionism and abstraction, with a strong fantasy," the artist points out.
A possible pivotal work of this exhibition is "The Thinker", a large-format oil on canvas whose spiritual, as well as precedent in terms of artistic execution, is Goran's award-winning work "The Philosopher" from 2016. "The Thinker" is characterized by artistic airiness, and in the context of new works, it is a certain signpost to the new Ćetković graying. The creation of this painting, says the artist, was a painstaking process.
"Every large canvas from this phase started with that form of 'Philosopher', and today's 'Thinker' I literally copied for months. The canvas on which I started to paint a self-portrait turned to 'Thinker' and I came to a form that is very unusual in terms of art. It seems fresh, but, under those layers there was an extraordinary amount of work, and so much searching in all phases of the picture, for the epilogue it has a fluttering form. It was the first picture I wanted to deal with on the big screen, but it is one of the last ones that were created. I wanted a work that could separate all that, and here it is now in the central place in this installation, I think it deserves it", adds Ćetković.
In Goran Ćetković's creative process, as a rule, what is set up as a drawing is diametrically opposed to the end result, to which a kind of mini-cycle leads on one canvas.
"You can say that. In my painting, I strive for the power of expression and expressiveness, and if you dig into one place, if you place a drawing on the canvas and remain faithful to it until the end of the painting process, then that painting is static and loses its dynamism. For me, it is important that the painting is dynamic, that it rotates, that it is alive, that it 'works', that I constantly fight with it, if it is static, it completely deviates from the goal of my painting", indicates the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
This exhibition will be exhibited in the ULUCG Art Pavilion in September in Podgorica and will be supplemented with new works, "so that it gains more quality in that large space". And this detail points to Ćetković's work discipline, which has characterized him since his student days.
"There were ups and downs, today when I look back, I can state that without work there is literally nothing. Some days it is reduced to only two or three hours, but you have to study in the studio every day, you have to pick up a brush, live with those pictures, observe them... Sometimes we do more work by looking at and analyzing the works in silence, the name of this settings and it comes from there. From the aspect of solitude in the silence of the studio, as an escape from contemporary noise and consumer society, these characters emerge who are both distant from this world and deeply immersed in it," Ćetković concluded.
The names frame the pictures
The titles of Goran's paintings exude reflexivity: "Face of the World", "Creation", "Prayer", "Face of War", "Birth/Happiness", "Thinker", "Circle", "Nausea", "Thought", "Peace", “Smile”, “Fear”, “Expectation”, “Scream”…. "It is interesting that a picture is always created first, and only when it has been in the studio for some time, until the thing settles in me, when I analyze it well and see what I wanted, do I come up with an adequate name. I try to make it as short, simple and effective as possible, most often it is one word, to hit the essence", says Ćetković.
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