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Artist Exhibitions:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Galleries:
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Artist Reviews:
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Collections:
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Commissions:
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Artist Statement for Marko Janicki
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Instead of speaking about my art in general, I would rather concentrate on a few important issues, the ones I see as biggest threats to a proper understanding of my work.
1) SUBJECT. After presentations of my work I often hear questions: “What does this painting mean?” or “What do you want to say with this painting?” Well, I would like to give a clear answer: nothing. Or, rather, nothing that can be expressed in words. Visual art is beyond the world of words and ideas. Like music or dance, it has its own ways of expressing. I think that people who attempt to use their art as a way of nearly verbal communication should write a book instead. My paintings are here to please your eyes, not to provoke your brain activity. Expressing big ideas is domain of esthetically unimaginative persons. I gave up the originality of ideas for the originality of composition, colours and lines, which represent my personality very well.
2) STYLE. I work in the style of “alla prima”, which means I am not covering the cardboard with infinite layers of paint, but rather trying to include the background and structure of the cardboard in the final piece. I am sure that sometimes “less means more”.
3) MATERIAL. Most people connect oil paintings with canvas. Although I sometimes work on this material, I prefer cardboard for two reasons: special surface that appeals to me and gives me the possibility to play with the background and, secondly, easiness of preparation. But even if cardboard had been an inferior material, I would defend its use because an artist should never rely on the quality of his canvas, paints or brushes, but entirely on his talent. However, I can name some famous artists of the past who were also fond of the cardboard: H.T.Lautrec, Degas, Gaugain…
4) WORKING IN PLEIN AIR. By working in plein air I mean painting the real subject in the real time. This excludes working from memory, photography, imagination or even my own sketches. “We cannot step twice in the same river” – not only the exterior conditions (light, weather, objects in the scenery) change very quickly, but my inner mood is also different every day, every hour. I never add anything after the paining is done, which usually takes me about an hour. My work method is therefore different from most of the so called “plein-air painters”, who work mainly from a photo, during a long time enough to make it look “perfect” and realistic. To me, this is cheating of the customers who, instead of a lively, unrepeatable catch of a disappearing moment, get a sterile child of the studio. What makes such painting unique when you know that the artist can sit again under his electric light and make another identical one?
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