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1. December 1999, by ARTnewspaper.com, "Looking For A New Masaccio"
2. December 1996, by Bela Duranci, Art Historian
3. November 1995, by Slobodan S. Sanader, Art Historian, "Paintings of Emotional Truth"
Mr. Bela Duranci, Art Historian
December, 1996
There is a huge generation gap between the youthful illusions of ours on the one hand and a young painter's enthusiasm on the other hand, the gap of testimonies given by the crazed civilization.
The very understanding of a painting, which bears the burden of conventions with respect to the prewar art posing a number of existential questions and being full of anxiety, implies in fact the analysis of a set of "mirrors" as seen by the young generation of painters. Unfortunately, it is these artists, more than any others before, that are rightly lost in such existential contemplations. In the meantime, that is for the last fifty years, there have been a variety of earthquakes to be dealt with and these, as a result, have left a significant mark on the very art of painting.
The crisis of art to be taken as an echo of the all-inclusive chaos, has influenced the falling apart of painting following the falling apart of the entire humanistic tradition. An artist aware of not being capable of changing the present world, sets off to create his/her own world on the canvas as well as in space, the results being numerous personal modernist and post-modernist poetics.
One of such poetics is the artistic testimony given by Ms. Branislava Duranovic, who has chosen the ecstatic expressionist style. This is by no means to indicate that Ms. Duranovic is willing to return to the style that has put a stamp on the 20th century. Her originality is an intellectual idea of the neo-expressionist statement which is, in her words, to "give a new value to the old thoughts" taking advantage of a set of "visual/sound elements".
One is to believe her! With an energetic, succinct coloring of black, red and gray surfaces, yellow shrieks and white vagueness, Ms. Duranovic penetrates deeply into the secretive abyss of "unreachable, static, but in fact protected" intimacy's vitality.
Having received a superb education and, therefore, in an original style, Ms. Duranovic presents an authentic, provoking and stirring testimony of a genera rational quest.
On the white surfaces, self-confidently and almost aggressively, Ms. Duranovic reaches for a linear armature: there is a variety of illuminating pieces; the expressionist nerve-schema suggesting live body tissue; a conflict between pictorial signs giving shapes the intentionally "unfinished" sights. An emphasized fragmentation prevents a non-artistic reading of the painting. On the contrary, one is to guess the scene - as a "reflecting image" of one's own emotions.
Ms. Duranovic's art is so moving as a result of the fact that it shines with the youth energy as well as troubled, early adulthood, the results of the avoidance or presence of crucial communication. In an expertly manner she interprets the well-known humanity, lowered hands suggesting "subtle emotionalism", frightening individuals in red and white "separated by the embraces"; the kind of art to "address" the conscience of the society, a fully developed creative act.
(Translated from Serbian)
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