The award-winning Montenegrin painter Goran Ćetković is exhibiting his works for the first time this year precisely in Bar on January 19 at 19 pm in the "Matica" cafe. Entitled "Voices of silence", the exhibition includes about fifteen works created in the previous two years, which bear Goran's strong and already recognizable author's stamp on the local art scene.
"I didn't plan this exhibition, but when I saw what kind of space it was, intended for the promotion of art, after calling the owner of the bar, I was happy to respond, especially since this exhibition opens the art program of "Matice". The Montenegrin audience got to know my works from the series 'Voices of Silence' and 'The Tooth of Time', which interpenetrate each other, this exhibition is a cross-section of my creativity, and thanks to the spacious modern interior, there will also be my larger canvas," Ćetković tells "Vijesta".
Everything that this artist insists on since the beginning of his painting is sublimated on these canvases - above all gesturality, a strong and gestural stroke with a broad brush, and what he always strives for - expressiveness, insisting on the power of expression, which is his intimate author's genius loci.
Goran Ćetković's creative credentials in this setting are complemented by the dynamism of moves that negate statics, based on spontaneity, where individual moves eventually fit together as parts of a kind of moving mosaic.
The central motif is well known - the heads that represent the restlessness of today's man, his internal disagreements and reflections of the events around him.
In these paintings, the effect of centrifugal force is evident, because the author's strokes with the brush around those heads with their often bewildered views create swirls that bear witness to the ferocity of the modern man's daily existential struggle.
"I paint a picture of the fast lifestyle of a man who today is torn in all directions, I catch myself first that sometimes I literally don't know which side I will turn to from my obligations. Although that story is not over yet, I think that my creativity has reached its peak through these two cycles, that my expression is now the most mature, with great progress in the technical sense, and in other aspects such as the psychological analysis of the characters, and in another artistic sense, and art is what I am primarily interested in", adds Ćetković.
Genre-wise, this is still expressionism bordering on fantasy and abstraction, which Dragan Jovanović Danilov, Ljiljana Zeković, Dejan Đorić, Anastazija Miranović, Lucija Đurašković pointed out earlier in their reviews... This is the sea in which Ćetković's brush sails safely and conquers space with ease.
"That gesture is typical for my creativity, a single stroke that always accentuates important details in the picture - facial expression, eyes, lips. Those faces are tired, but, despite all the hardships and the weight of life's circumstances, they also carry a primordial life force. "Certainly, what permeates my paintings the most is the cry, which, again, speaks of a civilization that has used up many resources, which is getting tired", describes the artist.
His painted cry causes instant discomfort in many viewers. There are almost no people whose faces break into a smile in front of one of Ćetković's "heads", they make you think and question. Certain works, such as "Loneliness", entered deep into the zone of metaphysical painting, and with them the author shows that he began to think "into the depth of the canvas".
To all these comments, Ćetkovič replies that the artist must distance himself from necessarily being likable and receptive at first glance.
"Doing art is always a double-edged sword. You should insist on total art, you should not pander to the audience or anyone else. Most people experience art as something beautifully packaged, made up, simple - something that evokes feelings of joy. I myself am someone who loves life and who is happy, however, in art the most important thing is to be honest, be guided by what you feel and deal with tricky topics. Maybe I really opened that Pandora's box, as some art historians have recognized my work, from which all that one world emerged that causes discomfort to the observer, and why? Because that world speaks the truth, what is the eternal theme - the transience of life. I look behind me, the decades seem to have passed in an instant. These pictures indicate that, with their very names such as 'The Tooth of Time', 'Loneliness', 'Transience', they indicate these states. My painting is supported by a strong emotion", says the painter from Bar.
Compositionally, Ćetković's heads in these paintings "walk", float, hang, often without a neck, without shoulders, sometimes even cut off, and the painter often places them in a not-so-favorite square within the world of painting.
"Most of the portraits are made in the square format, which, according to some opinions, is the most difficult, but it suits me completely: I need to break some already seen clichés in terms of composition and painting. In my painting, the dynamics of painting is important, there are also points of contact with action painting - it is constant communication, searching, searching for the right form and the right compositional solution. That is very important for the picture, if it is placed in the space of that canvas properly, I think that also contributes to its even greater quality. "Many of my successful portraits were created in this way, which broke compositional clichés and where, with the help of unconventional solutions, I came to an even greater dramatization in the picture, to greater dynamics and, therefore, to its better artistry," says Ćetković.
Towards the end of last year, the artist surprised many followers on social networks with his thematic breakthrough, a series of about twenty landscapes of recognizable colors and forms brought almost to the level of abstract.
Although some of the motifs are noticeable at first glance, such as the settlement of Brac in Sutomor and the Old Town of Bar, this still nameless cycle is nevertheless Goran Ćetković's secret atlas, his vision of an alternative, imagined planet.
The interlocutor of "Vijesti" confirms that in the past few months he "moved away from the previous topic" with the motive.
"However, if you compare the heads with those landscapes, you can see the connection, it's actually the same artistic issue. In painting, I reduce everything to the simplest form, painted to the limit of abstraction, and here I drew everything from the Montenegrin karst - stone, water, sky, these elements say everything, I live in that world, be it a portrait or a landscape, My landscapes are Montenegro in short, there are appetizers from my area, but there are also fantastic ones. I try not to go into excessive concretization of the motif, I want to use it to indicate the passing of time, that's why there are ruined parts of architecture, dilapidated walls, extinct old settlements. I examine the relationship between nature and man who has forgotten his rudiments, his hearths, his roots. That cycle has yet to be unified, and then to get a name, those landscapes have their own dimension, but it is not yet ripe for an exhibition", concluded Ćetković.
The indifference of the observer is the greatest punishment for the painter
"I am participating in the 52nd Hercegnov winter art salon among about 20 selected authors, presenting myself with two works - 'Blind travelers' from 2011 from the then cycle of nudes and figures, and 'Vapaj', the cycle of heads from 2018. I am planning and one exhibition outside Montenegro, but about that later," added Ćetković.
One of the comments of admirers of Ćetković's portrayal of the discord of modern man is that in front of his studio in Brc "there is a stop sign for trivial and boring", Goran retorts that there is no greater punishment for a painter than the indifference of the observer of his work.
"The worst thing for an artist is if his work does not cause any reaction. I am followed by a large number of fans of fine art through social networks, the majority of that audience likes what I do, but there are also those who cannot understand such poetics that deals with the darker sides of life", concludes Ćetković.
Emblematic blue color
Valer is emblematic for him - the color blue, most often in dark registers, and it is precisely this color that brings unrest, does not allow the viewer to relax, drags him into the vortex and the story, the motif of the painting.
At the same time, blue and other colors from Ćetković's palette often leak across his canvas.
"I always tried to define the drawing with color and surface, which is not easy at all, and it came about on the basis of many years of work. Color and surface are what determine the form, of course this means a lot for the picture itself because spontaneity is seen there. I run away from a concrete, rational solution, I always search on the border of spontaneity, for it to be fluid, for the image to always 'work', for it to be alive by itself, because, if the form is static, the image loses its quality. Certainly, everything comes out of that darkness, which here is blue. I rarely use black, but I mix blue with darker shades of other colors and thus create that darkness - dark blue with carmine red or brown or umber. From that darkness, I emphasize important details on the canvas, I illuminate them with white color, which is also mixed with some other colors, but it is almost pure white, which speaks of a certain purity and sincerity", adds Ćetković.
Bonus video:
