Presents:

Deceleration

Exhibition on tour:
National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb – from 5 to 29 November 2020
Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik – from 10 December 2020 to 28 February 2021

Video: Stanko Herceg, Mario Borščak

Video by Ana Stanić

During the past years I have been living in a constant inner struggle. My paintings – or what I wish to capture in them – take up more and more time. I think that the reason for this is not me growing older and slower in general, but that the paintings accumulate ever more details and that my manner of painting, the endless glazing of the same area over and over again in order to achieve the desired presence and density, takes up hour after hour passing by completely unnoticed.  When I feel this captivated for days by a single detail of a painting, I often feel like I have to accelerate the process of painting, that I should align with these times that move at a frantic pace and in which nobody will muster the patience nor concentration to engage in the old-fashioned, slow pleasure of examining my paintings anyway. Actually, I have caught myself in this trap, for I think of it as a trap at times. When choosing a subject, I have let myself be led by personal circumstances instead of a concept or system. But looking at the painting, I have to confirm that it had to be painted in exactly this way. On account of the energy, the atmosphere, in order to implement everything I consciously or subconsciously wanted to achieve in that particular painting.  Since I did not find a formula for how to paint in a quick and simple way and still be satisfied with the outcome (yet), I submit to the fact that this slow, laborious and at times frustrating way of painting is my very own and recognisable one. This is the reason why I decided to present the paintings that came to exist over the past years under the title "Deceleration".