Fields of Infinity and the Magic of Dragan Karadžić

The true realm of art, the endless colors, the depth of the canvas and the blue, the music in traces and movement, the intertwining of emotions and associations, childish imagination and the mystical secrets of humanity and human destiny, are delicately depicted by the academic painter. Dragan Karadzic at his new solo exhibition “Field of Signs.” The exhibition, held at the Gallery of the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts (CANU), opened on Monday evening, marking 50 years of the artist's creativity and 30 years of membership in the Academy.

“Field of Signs” is at the same time a path to knowledge, but also the center of the essence of man, a symbiosis of all arts in each individual painting exhibited at CANU. “Field of Signs” is partly the field of Dragan Karadžić’s creativity, but also much more than that. With his striking, recognizable artistic style and expression, Karadžić offers the observer a kind of mirror of the inner being, painting along the subtle paths of the soul, memory and life.

In an interview with "Vijesti", Karadzic also revealed how the title itself crystallized.

"That's the name of a painting that was very dear to me, but I lost it. Someone who was so persistent bought it, and then I somehow regained it, at least to be in the catalogue and at this exhibition. There is that symbolism you're talking about in the title itself, but not literally, because it's hard for a person to sum up everything in two words," Karadzic said.

He added that about 50 works were selected for this occasion, but that at least 600 remained in the studio, which only testifies to the luxurious oeuvre, inexhaustible inspiration and constant search and creativity of one of the most fruitful, most complex and most prominent Montenegrin artists. He adds that “Field of Signs” is in a way a retrospective exhibition, but not entirely. As the name suggests, it would be difficult to summarize half a century of creative art, changes, wealth and life with one exhibition.

The large audience at the exhibition opening was greeted by Vesko Ninković on behalf of CANU, and then the exhibition curator, art historian, addressed the audience. Ljiljana Zeković, while the exhibition was officially opened by the vice president of CANU, academician Zoran Rašović.

"It is a great and extraordinary honor to stand here at the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts, in our home and in the home of our great artist, and above all, our dear colleague and sincere friend, Academician Dragan Karadžić, on the occasion of his 50 years of artistic creativity and three decades of membership in our Academy. Opening an exhibition of such a creator does not just mean talking about a painter, it means bearing witness to a quiet, yet magnificent magic that lasts and fills us for decades," said Rašović.

Zeković noted that in Karadžić's artistic oeuvre (paintings, drawings, watercolors), rural landscapes, reflections of supernatural phenomena of nature, the iconography of urban landscapes, the light and atmosphere of the Mediterranean, as well as structures/constellations created by the pulsations of organic and inorganic nature that he transposes into a new reality, a metaphysical projection of the native horizon...

"Karadžić's visual language is a priori one of the most complex and imaginative in Montenegrin painting. He provokes our curiosity before the mystery of aniconic dilemmas, which he has studiously and imaginatively composed into an archetypal field of premonitions, symbolic magic that fills a self-explanatory space in which the cosmic drama of nature and the Zen Buddhist transcendence of the artist's spiritual state are harmonized," Zeković noted.

She also pointed out that Karadžić is one of the rare artists who reveals the secrets of his artistic universe through the names of his paintings and the verbal language of communication.

"In his written form, in his intimate autobiographical notes and sketches, he instructs us to understand, feel, and see what is at first glance deeply hidden in the secret labyrinths of the artist's subconscious," said Zeković, which is confirmed by the exhibition itself, as well as the accompanying catalog, which contains Karadžić's notes.

However, she added, we can most fully experience and feel the magic of an artist's artwork with our inner eye, emotions, soul, as well as sensory sensations, and visitors to the "Field of Signs" exhibition will be convinced of this.

Zeković expressed gratitude to her colleague Ljiljani Karadzic for their professional cooperation in organizing this exhibition, as well as to the organizer Ninković and the technical team.

Academician Rašović assessed that every person carries within them the stamp of the place from which they came, including Karadžić.

“Born in the historic Petnjica near Šavnik in that mythical nest, where sharp and wise words have always been born and where language and tradition are as hard as karst and as soft as the soul, Dragan Karadžić brought with him the most precious thing that Montenegro can give to an artist. Within reach of his proud Petnjica, Pošćensko Lake nested, that mountain jewel, that living water that captivated our Dragan in his early youth, bewitching him among the harsh Šavnik karst. That lake in its mystical peace gave Dragan's eye his first art lesson. Pošćensko Lake in its lordly deep peace and the fast beech-covered Komarnica River that violently breaks through the canyon, turning into a wild foamy whiteness that roars and defies the rocks in its eternal freedom-loving movement. Unreal nature captivated him with its silence, its depth and those miraculous gradients where the green grass of the shore touches the blue "...of the firmament. In every stroke of the brush you can feel the breath of that lake, that divine nature that is reflected in the clear water and defies the sky at the foot of Durmitor. That harsh, yet incredibly subtle beauty of the Montenegrin environment, that eternal dialogue between the gray, impenetrable stone and the endless, free sky was the food that Dragan Karadžić nourished. That nature lifted him up, inspired him and gave him wings to soar and reach the Lovćen heights of art," he said, adding that behind that quiet and majestic beauty stands a monumental dial, a grandiose opus.

Rašović continued to talk about Dragan Karadžić's color palette, but also the dominance of "divine blue".

"His colors, those muted, yet deeply earthy shades, tones of blue, gray, and white, which he associated with the cosmic silence and light that illuminates the karst and endless expanses of Montenegro. These are the colors of memory, the colors of the land from which he originated and to which he constantly pays tribute through art," he said and continued:

"That divine blue color on his paintings does not decorate, it rules, it maintains a balance between the unrest of our karst and the infinity of the cosmos. Due to the extremely thin water deposits and azure, light passes through the color and unfolds, so all the aforementioned dominant colors, be they blue, gray or ochre, acquire a specific airiness and the impression of flying and shining," he said at the opening.

He also said that talking about Dragan Karadžić means talking about a great painter whose oeuvre transcends local boundaries, but also a man of culture and soul, that refined, lordly nature who, with every gesture and creative act, ennobles our cultural space.

"Looking at these works tonight, we are not just watching the loss of a maestro's paintings, we are witnessing a deep meditative dialogue between a man of soul, his Petnjica, Montenegro and eternity. CANU has been Dragan Karadžić's true home for 30 years. It is the home of his spirit, his academic house, in whose vaults his paintings do not just stay as guests, but live and breathe with full lungs," said Rašović and officially opened the exhibition, emphasizing that with his work, the beauty of the soul, a heart full of life, academician Dragan Karadžić has already entered the constellation of immortals of our culture.