P I C TO R I A L E X O R C I S M

of Artist Aleksandar Bezinovic

Tell us about yourself

I was born 1975  in Split, a beautiful city on the coast of Croatia that was developed inside and around ancient roman palace. I finished high school there and moved to Zagreb where I obtained my BA in painting at the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts in 1998. After Croatia become independent from Republic of Yugoslavia there was lots of war damaged cultural heritage so from 1998–2006, I worked on Baroque and Renaissance church altars restoration at the Croatian Conservation Institute in Zagreb.

I quit 2007 and began freelancing so I could spend more time painting. While working on new series of paintings for the exhibitions I supported myself by making whiteboard illustrations, illustrations for magazines and working as a scenic artist/painter in the theatre and in film industry. Some of my exhibition series from that time were “Anywhere out of this world”, named by poem from Baudelaire, “Moon and Steel” inspired by Mishima essay Sun and Steel, and “Sundogs” inspired by Empires and technology of death. 

At the end of 2019, after 7 months work as a Head painter on “Strike back 8” series I decided to strike back myself and to quit with scenic jobs so I could focus on my personal work and figure out how to live from it. So from 2020 I decided to be a full time artist. At that time I had 20 solo exhibitions and 30 group exhibitions behind me but still felt as a complete art world outsider. 

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Your greatest inspirations or influences?

I never dig too deep theoretically into my inspirations because as I go deeper in to the subject of my interest, I find how less I know about it and it makes me insecure. I need to save space for creativity and a little bit of mystery. 

My influences range widely from the history of architecture, calligraphy, ancient Greek vase painting, Islamic pattern design to geometric modernism and typographic design.

I try to draw energy from simple forms that create rhythm I can resonate with. It is easy to start simple, but to keep simplicity through long lasting process is hard. There’s also a physical process of shaping matter. Working with different materials layer after layer is a big part of a play. Also what I find in Black colour is suppressed, incubating energy that is liberated through contrast with white or yellowish textured surfaces. Blackness or Nigredo as the alchemists saw it , is the beginning of the great work and that is what I find inspiring - feel that I am always at the beginning, starting from unknown. 

Tell us a bit about your creative process?

Transition from my figurative earlier work to black geometric forms came from the need  to express my ideas faster. I intentionally limited my palette and my process to one geometric shape inside coordinate system, so I could create the subject with the apparition of secret, hidden reality by focusing on what I find is important. 

Placing circle drawings into the set format and their connections to form new as well as recurring forms reminds me of a process of decoding some unfamiliar and magical system. It’s like I’m coding and decoding one work from the same basic element - circle, and I’m repeating it until it exhausts me. That thought was essential for creating my “Forgotten passwords” exhibition in 2020.

I usually work with acrylics on canvas but since building textures of my paintings is quite material and a physical job, sometimes it takes different kind of tools and materials.

It is a dialectical process where every finished layer is destroyed and used as a base for a new one. It ends in the reconstruction of a basic drawing that I carve with a screwdriver or other sharp tool that reveals the process of its own making in a black painted form. 

What I am looking forward to this year is to keep focus on my personal work and to exhibit more when situation gets better. Looking forward also to start traveling again, visiting museums, having drinks outside. Now we all learned how privileged is what we used to consider as “normal” before.

How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the art industry changing moving forward?

As I said for almost 20 years I worked second jobs to support myself and to afford 2-3 months a year of effective painting. Until 2020 I sold just a few paintings mostly to my friends,  and I overpainted most of my canvases. With pandemic and lockdowns I could not continue to work on scenic jobs even if I wanted to. I had to paint full time and adjust to the situation so I started developing my market with online galleries and IG. With some luck and lots of hard work it worked for me. So from that perspective I personally don’t know better times. I never had a chance before to exhaust myself with painting so continuously, and that affected my creative process a lot. In a way I purified my work from unnecessary and I gain some confidence from the people that support and follow my work.

Until a few years ago my understanding of Art industry was based on writing emails to the galleries that never replied. I made a change by collaborating with online galleries, interior designers and continuously sharing photos of my work on Instagram which has helped me to connect with other artists and collectors. Art industry used to depend on information placed at the right place in the right time by the right people. What I think is moving forward those days is that every time is right  and information are so easy to find and share online. Artist without representation in good galleries can be visible, participate n the market and contribute in the Art world in a real time process.