In Vojvodina’s Museum of Modern Art, in Novi Sad, Dobri Stojanović will later this year present a unique retrospective of 120 paintings, all canvases on oil of various formats.
This will be the first more important encounter this artist has had with the public since 2002, when he had a solo-exhibition at the "Cvijeta Zuzorić Art Pavilion" in Belgrade’s Kalemegdan Park, where he displayed 90 paintings created during his 14-year career.
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"… In Dobri’s paintings a dynamic interaction between both female and male nudes is at the fore, and they are the protagonists and antagonists of complex mise-en-scčnes of a certain ritual, of paganstirred passions simply boiling with life energy. They are surrounded with symbolic ethno-attributes of fruits, flowers, the head of an ibex, birds, a mirror as magic spell but also as a symbol of moral purity …" – notes art critic Kosta Vasiljković, a member of the Association of International Critics of Art, AICA, in referring to Stojanović’s new paintings, but not to his complete opus. About his art, the artist told Jat Review that it may perhaps be defined as "expressionized post-modern figurative fantasy" in which mysticism has a great role. |
"While painting, I never aspire to perfection but I’m rarely satisfied with my work", says Stojanović. He introduces light to his painting as its most important element, then matter, rhythm… All these elements, as well as space, which "give sense and physiognomy", are subordinated to an idea that must finally be realized.
That idea is closely connected with dreams, the essential aspect of life for each man, and with childhood, which is the real source of inspiration according to Dobri and many other artists. Dobri attempts to preserve it, he says, as a prayer book. For him, humans are the main inspiration, while frequent motifs include mythological creatures (animals, birds…) all cast in atypical situations without being physically fixed. Nothing is finished, but everything has its sense. Elements of fantasy mix with elements of surrealism.
"We don’t know for sure where thought ends and dream takes over, or when life begins … These are meditations, an inner dialogue with one self", says Stojanović, adding: "My work is actually my intimate behaviour, my life … I am trying to convey that I am here, that I am".
In general, Dobri thinks art is a painstaking search for some other life. "Every work assumes suffering, trouble, effort, self-denial … Achieving something spiritual is even accompanied with a sort of physical spasm, pain we may say", says Stojanović. In contemporary art, however, in conceptual art above all (installations, objects …) "as a great challenge to conscience", he sees mostly spiritual emptiness because, as he says, "it itself is so shortlived", leaving no mark in its wake. This is a matter of taste, one may say, but it seems these words reflect the painter’s appeal: "Observe the painting, you will be rewarded!"
Stojanović’s early paintings were slightly subdued, probably from the influence of graphics, which he was doing a lot of back then. When he went to Spain in 1987, however, this Mediterranean country’s burst of warm colors suddenly opened him, returning him to childhood and its strong colors.
Overall employment conditions after he finished his studies and the opportunity to make graphics in the premises of the Academy of Fine Arts were decisive in Stojanović’s decision to turn to graphic art and drawing. He also had a good measure of luck – he won two Grand Prix awards for drawings (in Tuzla, at the Biennale of Drawings and Graphic Art on the theme "portrait") and two awards for graphic art (at La Coruńa and Seoul). He lectured on graphic art for several months in Liege, at the Royal Academy, and he gave lectures on the art of drawing in Brussels. Since then, he has been lecturing, drawing and painting at the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade.
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Dobri Stojanović was born in Kalna, by Mt. Stara Planina. He completed his studies at the Academy of Applied Arts and post-graduate studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. As holder of a Belgian government fellowship, he specialized in graphic art in Brussels, in 1973. As a recipient of a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, he specialized in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid.
Dobri Stojanović has participated in more than 250 collective exhibitions in the country and abroad, in more than 80 international exhibitions (Seoul, Baden-Baden, Berlin, Varna …) He has held about 30 solo exhibitions in the country and abroad. Numerous foreign and domestic art critics have written about him and he has been presented in several books, including the Encyclopedia Britannica. Stojanović has won 15 Yugoslav and six international awards. He has been a member of the Union of Fine Artists of Serbia (ULUS) since 1970. His works are displayed in world museums and collections, including the National Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Royal Library Albert I in Brussels, the Museum of Fine Arts in Liege, in museums of contemporary art in Krakow, Seville, Seoul, Maastricht, Tokyo and elsewhere. | |
