Place of birth: Montenegro
BC: How would you like to introduce yourself to our public? Who is Zeljko Djurovic?
ZD: To say it in the simplest way, Zeljko Djurovic is a painter, the man who is in love with paintings and old masters, a man who believes that it is possible, even today, to make paintings which would outlast generations, a man who walks on the sunny side of the street, believes in art and builds his existence on art.
BC: What is your cultural and personal background? How did you start being involved with art, did you look for it or was it art to find you actually?
ZD: I firmly believe that art found me. In my earliest childhood I showed a certain tendency to creativity. I made my first toys myself. I made my first sculptures in sand on the Mediterranean beach of Ulcinj, Montenegro when I was a boy, and I was very miserable when waves destroyed them.
Thanks to my mother who had a comprehension for my art predispositions, I got in touch with art materials and art history books. At that time it was very hard to get those things, as I lived in a small town and a poor environment.
When my school pals went to play football after school (it was in primary school) and I took my block and pencil for painting and went to paint the neighbouring hills, I realized that I was predestinated to do something else. Even at that time I was so infected by the virus of art that the reproductions of old masters' works - I hadn't a chance to see original art paintings until I was 15, seemed to me more realistic that life itself.
BC: What was your training process, did you attend art schools and did you have teachers whom you consider your mentors?
ZD: After I finished gymnasium in Danilovgrad, I left for Belgrade, where I passed entrance examination at the Faculty of Applied Arts, in the painting sector. The next 5 years were the years of dreams, intensive work, reading, visiting exhibitions, student's traveling and love.
The years spent at the Faculty were great years, I have nice memories of lecturers and professors, but the time spent with some of my colleagues who had the similar views about art, was more important for me than professors and the things they said.
Library and everyday conversations with my colleagues, mutual belief in creation of immortal worth, time spent with old masters led me to my expression.
BC: Which artists and movements have influenced and inspired you?
ZD: The Renaissance, Baroque, the later appearance of Surrealism and Fantastic Art with their artists made me become a member of that family.
BC: Have you ever experimented with forms of art other than painting and drawing?
ZD: No.
BC: Some say mastering drawing is the most important requisite of the painting technique. What is your opinion about?
ZD: I think that those who say that drawing is not important haven't infringed in art yet. Drawing is in the base of everything. I've intensively worked on drawing since my student days and drawing has the core position in my work.
The good drawer could do whatever he wants, of course with respect of the medium in which he expresses himself. I fell in love with pin, everything else stay on surface.
When I draw with pin and pin penetrates the paper and dark liquid flocks in to the rut, it makes me associating it to conceive, on making love. I want to rehabilitate the importance of drawing as a substantive discipline, to return to its format and price. Drawing is my oasis, the love I always return to with lots of passion, strength and new ideas.
BC: How is the art world in Serbia and Montenegro? We will be hosting other artists from that country this year, so it seems like a very fertile land for artists, isn't it?
ZD: Montenegro is a very specific place, which appeared not to be very good for the developing of the seeds of art, so artists usually have to leave Montenegro carrying it in their hearts, and always return to it in their works. I am also one of those who carry Montenegro in their hearts, and who incorporated in his work the warmth and light of the Mediterranean and the blueness of the sea.
BC: You often put animals, little babies and women in your paintings. What do they represent in your personal symbolic world? Why are they so important?
ZD: Yes, those elements appear on my paintings, and also horn, water, spindle and egg shapes, and all this pulsate in endless life, passion, libido and original wish for survival. That is the reason why I walk on the sunny side of the street. All those elements are set in my sensibility and artistic position, and make the building of my fantastic world possible. They have not appeared suddenly, but have entered my world slowly, patiently waiting for the right moment.
BC: When was the first time you were really satisfied with the result of your work? I mean, is there any of your paintings you consider the best you ever made?
ZD: Some dose of dissatisfaction always exist in an artist and it makes you going ahead to search, to compete with yourself. I always try to give my maximum, to put in the painting all the energy that I possess in that moment, but the line of creativeness doesn't always go up. I constantly have a wish to make the painting I would be remembered after. I've always hated series and concepts.
There are paintings I am really satisfied with, but after which I would be remembered, who knows?
BC: Where does your inspiration come from?
ZD: From everyday work. I don't believe in the artists to whom ideas come from the touch of God. Intensive work, reading, enjoying in other sorts of art together with
inspiration and talent give the right results.
BC: Can you say you have a favorite subject?
ZD: An often asked question is whether the artist chooses the topic or the topic chooses the artist. I think that the topic choses me. Since my earliest works there is some clue, which is the connection between my works, no matter if that is the painting, graphic or drawing. The beginning of the clue is in the water, big blueness and warm sand, where I saw and painted naked female body for the first time, the body that cried for syntheses with nature from which it was violently taken away, the body which woke up some new restlessness in me. I realized that I was on the threshold which I would never pass and that I would always search for the entrance for that door, by painting the scenes of the world I wish after so much. From the moment God gave me the privilege to be an artist, he gave me the whip for self-punishment. He gave me one more punishment - color. I think that color is the element of painting that takes the viewer in the sphere of fantastic.
BC: What do you want to communicate with your paintings? Do you believe artists are sincere when they affirm "they didn't necessarily put any hidden message into their works"?
ZD: I have been a professional artist for almost 30 years and my exhibitions are usually very visited. The paintings are welcomed with the same enthusiasm by the young people, middle-aged and older generations, which I must admit makes me very happy. My works are related to those who haven't lost their soul, who have their internal life, who feel art instinctively, from the stomach, and who tremble while watching a good peace of art. I don't believe in artworks that could be rationally explained. The real art always brings mystery, positive emotions, delight and happiness. It have to hit you right in to the head and in the stomach, without passing around. Artwork has to contain the unconscious and hidden massages.
BC: You express yourself in a symbolist way. What does fascinate you most of symbolism?
ZD: Intuitiveness and mystical ness. Possibility and challenge to resolve my wishes, fears and ambitions and to tell my personal story (in respect of art expression), by using commonly accepted meanings of symbols deeply incorporated in the unconscious.
BC: Is the artist always a sign of his times or is art beyond time and space?
ZD: For an artist it is impossible to be out of the times he lives in. I think that he couldn't be isolated from the world, even if he wants to. Only the artist who knows his past, and lives his present intensively could enter the future. Artwork that is intuitive surely is beyond its time and space.
BC: To live just on his work is never easy for an artist, you have to deal with the most trivial sides of business and sometimes an artist feels he needs to sell his soul to success. How do you think you can remain pure in the sometimes brutal art business world?
ZD: Is it possible to remain pure in the world like this in any sense? Maybe, if the artist decides not to build his existence on art. Even the greatest artists of all times, who burned in creativity and made genius works, wanted to sell their works as a justification that somebody else believe in their art. The most important thing for an artist is to be honest with himself, to believe in what he is doing, to give the maximum for his work. When you became a professional and sell out your first work, you take a great responsibility and pressure. First you have a great responsibility to yourself. If you are a serious artist, the worst thing you could do is to betray yourself. Secondly, you have responsibility to the customer of your work, who wants the artist to become greater and better. Then comes the audience you want to please. The audience expects you to give them more pleasure on every new exhibition. And you also have to take into account the art critics, who do their job, glorify or criticize.
BC: Is there a subject or technique you would like to try in the future, as a personal challenge?
ZD: Considering the subject, I neither want, nor couldn't change anything. Of course, as a serious artist who thinks a lot about his work, I have to have creative requirements, to solve art problems, and this surely bring some changes in my expression and work. Now, I am entering the phase of big formats. Format is a challenge for me, and I always experiment with it. By changing the format, I set up new composition problems that are to be solved. Lately I have been thinking about sculpture as a new challenge. I wonder how would the women who step out from my paintings look like and become part of the space.
ZD: At the moment I am making two books about my work, one will be about my paintings and other about my drawings and graphics.
BC: If you were to list the most important values in your life at present, which would be at first place? Are they the same as when you were younger?
ZD: When I was younger I though art would take a lot from you. Later I realized that it takes even more. I remain an idealist and in love with art, and my family make my way easier.
BC: What is your biggest fear these days? And what makes you happy anyway?
ZD: I hope that I would never copy myself, and it is my greatest fear, not to put myself it that situation. I am a fruit that heavily maturates and I permanently work on renewing my beaming energy. I am happy when my children - I have two daughters, go to sleep and I kiss their sleepy heads, when I watch good exhibitions, when I see a beautiful woman.
BC: If you were not an artist, who would you like to be?
ZD: In Montenegro I own the house where I was born and I've always been connected with nature and ground. My art poetics is determinated by my childhood, and if I weren't an artist I would deal with ground, nature, taking care of plants and animals.
( 3 Votes )
Parent Category: Receptaculum Category: Interviews
