Exhibition of paintings "Phoenix" from the new cycle of the academic painter Goran Ćetković, will be opened tonight in Bar, in the "Velimir A. Leković" Art Gallery at 19 p.m., as part of the celebration of Liberation Day and Bar Municipality Day on November 24.
In question is Ćetković's latest cycle of works, which he united under the name "Fenix". The works were created during the last two years and so far, the artist tells Vijestima, there are about 60 of them. At the exhibition, he will present about 30 selected works, all large and medium format paintings.
"The Phoenix" cycle was created as an epilogue to my overall work so far. It fully corresponds with the previous cycles. The central motif is still man. The starting point for creation is the head and the human body. However, in this cycle the form is somewhat broken and brought to the edge of the abstract, but that limit has not been crossed, because in principle I am devoted to figuration", Ćetković explains to Vijest.
A legendary bird present in the mythology of many cultures, it is considered magical and unique in that it has the ability to self-regenerate, i.e. renew its life by first burning in flames at the very end of its life cycle, and then being reborn from its own ashes. Numerous associations and vivid symbolism encouraged Ćetković to further deepen what the phoenix means, but starting from the visual.
"The name 'Phoenix' has a symbolic meaning, like the phoenix itself, but for me it represents the very process of painting in which forms arise and disappear, and then are reborn, as if from the ashes... The painted forms, parts of the face and body, have an unprecedented dynamics and energy. Expressiveness and gesture contribute to the dramatic plot in the pictures themselves, and fierce contrasts make them even more dramatic. The heads are dominated by open mouths, which are the very epicenter of the picture from which the whole picture develops. This time, the scream in some pictures has different interpretations. In some pictures, he is a symbol of helplessness and despair, and in others he is a symbol of revolt and rebellion", Ćetković tells Vijest...
The exhibition will be opened by an art critic tonight Ljiljana Zeković, while he is a painter Dimitrije Popović in a short note about Ćetković's painting, called "Poetics of the Scream", he pointed out that "in the pluralism of the contemporary art scene, his works show how confidence in painting is returning, which is proof that the classical medium of painting remains as a permanent and vital possibility of artistic expression"...
"What dominates the painting of the contemporary Montenegrin artist Goran Ćetković is the exceptional expressiveness of creative expression, which is equally reflected in the painting of the human face and body. Everything is given in such a way that in the dynamic movement of the painted matter created from the transformed conventional anatomy of the human body, an impression of destructive energy is created, which, paradoxically speaking, is both canceled and confirmed at the same time. Such an impression is suggested by the names that the artist gives to his works. From 'The Creation of the World', 'Nausea', 'Transience' to 'Noah's Ark' or 'The Phoenix'. "Everything exists in order to disappear and be renewed again with the vitality of energy into a recognizable anthropomorphic form," Popović pointed out.
He pointed out that Ćetković's "whole gallery of 'portraits' of those unusual heads that are most often depicted as decapitated from the body to live independently in their own nothingness stands out."
"As a tragic case, man lives his fall into existence in such a way that he is alienated from the world and himself, exhausting himself precisely in the cry as the most convincing expression of his earthly living presence. Is it a cry of despair, surrender, rebellion, defiance, revolt, fear, hopelessness, aggression, powerlessness..., a cry of death or is it all together? Because the cry is immanent in the human being. The birth from the mother's womb as a unique celebration of coming into the world will be simultaneously expressed by the painful cry that begins the human existential adventure called life," wrote Popović, who noted that "the poetics of the cry in Goran Ćetković's paintings has multiple meanings."
"Because man and the world, human being and the universe, are one. They live in the dynamic harmony of the same. Everything is made of the same substance, everything originates from the primal matter from which the world is shaped and reshaped. In human shaping and reshaping, the cry becomes a personal and general, individual and collective expression of existence, which is also witnessed by fine art in its own way," said Popović.
Goran Ćetković was born in 1975 in Kolašin. He graduated in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje in 2000, in the professor's class Nikola Gvozdenović. He exhibited at a large number of group exhibitions and is a participant in important art salons in the country and abroad. He has had 44 solo exhibitions so far.
He is the winner of a large number of important awards, of which the following stand out: Award of FLU Cetinje and Spinnaker Gallery at the final year student exhibition, Award of ULUCG, Lubarda, Stijović and Milunović for 2016, Tesla Foundation Plaque, Belgrade 2017.
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