My work has taken on a tense outline, that inexhaustible immersion in the problem I have tackled. It is difficult to paint and deal with just one subject. Horses are creatures almost equal to humans. In fact, I paint humans, but the good in humans...
This was said by a famous Montenegrin artist Miomir Mišo Vemic, whose exhibition opened on Saturday evening at the Nikšić gallery "Kultivator".
And while "Pandora" boasts that she has managed to lead humanity astray and poison us with "delusions, half-truths, bad energies and lies", Vemic and his horses scream and warn that Armageddon is at our doorstep and that it is time to wake up.
"At this exhibition, I also exhibited four works from the 'Riders of the Apocalypse' cycle, because horses are the bearers of apocalyptic characters, which I did not depict at all, but I depicted that torment, that look of those who carry death, hunger and disease on their backs. We are witnesses to Armageddon that is at our doorstep, so in my own way I express what is happening in today's world, a relationship in which I see the hopelessness that is emerging. All my creativity since I started drawing these creatures has, unfortunately, been directed towards that despair that has befallen humanity," Vemić pointed out.
The “scream” of his horses is well known to art lovers, but also to Vemić's colleagues who came to attend the exhibition.
"Nikšić is like a phoenix, a city where cultural ups and downs occur. I'm also nervous, because the doyens of the Montenegrin art scene are here. I'm proud that I, in a way, brought them all together to see what I'm doing. This is a big test of what I'm doing," said Vemić.
Judging by the paintings, comments from artists, and art lovers, Vemić doesn't have to think about whether he "passed the exam." His index has long since been marked as a ten.
The writer and essayist knows this. Dragan Krtolica, who opened Vemić's exhibition called "Hypostasis".
"The eternal question of how to cope with freedom, whether real or imagined, is precisely the starting point of Vemić's poetics, which is a broad field of meditative communication between the artist and the objects of his observation. These masterfully executed paintings can seduce us, they can distract us from the poetic and symbolic, from the anxiety of modern man that dominates Vemić's paintings and is the essence of his poetics," said Krtolica.
According to him, the strokes are strongly executed, but controlled, while the coloring, under a certain moonlight glow, and the precise drawing give the paintings a special charm.
"The dominance of lunar figures in Vemic's paintings introduces us to the realms of dreaming, or sleep, where we identify with the doubts, with the fears of past, present and future life. And while Miš's horses and riders ride between the underworld of earth and sky, we realize that our journey has no end. We wonder if we will ever reach Cordoba, because Cordoba is far away and alone," Krtolica pointed out.
Torn between Thanatos and Eros, between sleep and waking, Vemić, according to him, introduces the audience into a sphere of thought and, almost hypnotically, takes them back to scenes that are just a moment, a state. He compared Vemić's horses to the horses in Lorca's poetry.
"Federico Garcia Lorca sings about horses, seeking a multiplicity of symbolic meanings, relying primarily on European symbolism and folk poetry... In Lorca and Vemić, horses and riders are not established symbols of dignity, glory, triumph, victory and self-control, but as in Carl Gustav Jung, "they are symbols of fear and above all despair"...
The exhibition, which consists of 17 paintings, painted in oil on canvas, will be open to visitors for 30 days.
Prof. Dr. Art History Erol Jildir, from Gelsim University in Istanbul, in the fall of 2020 he published a monograph of the greatest artists on the planet who have been “infected with hyposoma” in the last 200 years. The monograph features 80 artists, including Vemić.
Bonus video:
