"In between", drawing and sculpture

Galerija Herman Pecaric, Piran
26. 4 – 4. 6. 2012

The sculptor Emir Krajišnik is a graduate of the Belgrade Academy of Art and has been living in Sweden since 1991. He has been known to the Slovene and wider public in particular since 2001, when he took part as an invited participant at the International Sculpture Symposium Forma viva Portorož. He has already participated at a number of other international sculptural symposia, such as in Carrara and Volterra in Italy and Gävle in Sweden. He is the author of many public sculptures, mostly in Sweden, and his monumental sculpture »Adriatic Dream«, made from Istrian stone from Kanfanar quarry, is in the sculpture park on the Se?a peninsular. He is also co-author, together with Carlos Monge and Matejka Belle, of a group sculpture that was created to mark the 40th anniversary of the Forma viva Portorož symposia.

He has had independent exhibitions in Sweden, Serbia and France and since 1980 he has participated at numerous group and international exhibitions. He lives and works in Ystad in Sweden and often visits Piran.

Krajišnik is an all-round artist: together with his well-known sculptural opus, his drawing works are representative and he has also been inspired in his artistic research and expression by the use of contemporary technologies, spatial installations and similarly original installations at specific exhibition sites. In his first independent exhibition in Slovenia, in the intimate interior of the Piran gallery are presented a selection of drawings in the technique of coloured ink on paper, for the most part created in recent years, and a selection of small sculptures in marble and alabaster. All works, both two-dimensional and in three-dimensional form, demonstrate his aim to achieve extremely intimate expression, purified visual fable and mimetic quality. The knowledge gained during training at the Belgrade Academy, the experience that he has obtained in more than thirty years of uninterrupted experimentation and creation in various artistic forms and the new knowledge and understanding provided by living in the essentially different cultural environment of Sweden, where he has lived for the last two decades, define his original artistic creativity, unburdened by contemporary poetics. Simple, elementary and relaxed spontaneous lines, in delicate drawing excursions and in stone formats, which only associatively hint at inspiration in the real world, are the suggestive elements of the exhibition »In between«, which allow viewers a variety of contextual interpretations, a range of emotional experiences, as well as aesthetic visual and, most directly, haptic perception.

Drawing, the oldest form of human expression, also signifies for Krajišnik both the most direct and the most sincere method of communication. It is his self-reflective means of fast realisation of ideas, thoughts and feelings: it is therefore the medium for the most subjective external communication. In the creative ritual, the white surface of the paper becomes a special space in which a mysteriously suggestive play of lines is performed.

Thus with minimalistic means in the sense of an ascetic choice of lines and a small number of colours, he constructs an aesthetically cultivated and, in terms of narration, expressive morphology, as the most elementary and organic structure of communication. Individual drawings function as micro-cosmoses, individual microorganisms, unburdened of any kind of external subjective momentary motif: they are the most authentic reflection of his mental and emotional state, his intellect and intuition. The lines are filigree, miniscule derivations in combination with vehement and spontaneous playful strokes, which recur and gradate in their own intensity, are covered and interwoven, condensed and diluted.

The power of an energy charge is thus added to the field of painting, woven and entwined with lines of force as a direct reflection of his character and creative passion. These slender line structures are finally united in labyrinthine-reticular modulations, voluminously perceived macroforms, also generous for the viewer's imagination and fantasy. The intensely dark, predominantly black linear structure, here and there given red and blue values, is at the same time the bearer of a new, individual dynamic and mysteriously alluring story. In contrast, in the 'washed' drawings, he achieves a perceptible watercolour softness of alternating selected tones, so that the elementary paper structure retains its own materiality, which shines through the chromatic elements, whereby he further creates a lyrical, meditative atmosphere of light.

The exhibited small stone statuary shows the author's intention of preserving the primordial nature of the chosen material: he addresses the visitor with simple forms, which are only in segments reminiscent of specific subjective inspirations. The sculptures are certainly the result of technical knowledge and especially the many years of investigation and analytical purification and deconstruction of the basic motif, so that the harmonious coexistence of two sculptural aspects is retained: material and form. The materiality of the sculptural membranous smooth and rough surfaces, reliefs with concave and convex planes and, consequently, an alternating play of shadow and light parts, and abstractly designed symbolic forms, which change from sculpture to sculpture, are the elements that reveal the author's creative imagination. The process of sculpting is a contemplative ritual, which, together with physical effort, also involves a special process of synthesis of the mental and spiritual and a profoundly respectful attitude to the primordial, to the past, present and future. The viewer is lead into an eternity of time and space, into the known and unknown, into the allure of the elementary archaic in nature and life, into the visually aesthetic and haptically sensual.

Nives Marvin