Sweeping Confetti From the Floor of the Concrete Hole / Lauba House

Photos / Damir Žižić 

Joy Division

This one was hard. It was hard to make, hard to title and as hell hard to photograph. The idea behind it follows further development of love matter, focusing on the role of male friends in break-up. So i wanted an image where the main protagonist, obviously plagued by hurt and despair caused by ending relationship is surrounded by his male friends. 

But they don't have a clue what to do.

The image aims at the vague territory of the support we all kind of need in moments like these, but fail to receive..the way it would be of help at least. Not like there's no right intention there, the opposite really. Friends are there for good or bad, but mute, without any good or satisfying word of comfort that you can believe in. 

There was this one time when my soul was broken, two of my friends took me on a trip to the end of the world. We drove there for couple of days. I felt like a mental patient most of the time, but as we traveled along fun we had was getting better by the hour and by the time we got back i was reborn. What they did, even though it wasn't more than just being there, was beyond words. 

But i guess if you're in a need for a word of advice, you're in trouble. There is none. So i wanted a work about that, how mute support really is and how those who love you cannot help you. Painting it got really tough as i moved forward. We had a photo-session where i shaped the image and it took me ages to get the painting done.

The troubling name of 'Joy Division' was the best one by far. Leave out the implication of monolith band behind the name, It felt right in so many ways: 'division' suggest a very male thing going on and 'joy' is what they're there for. But then there is the band and the chances of disregarding it when seeing the title are minimal i know, and the world war two implication..trouble. Still the title sounded perfect for this work and despite its dangers, i'm keeping it.

Master & Everyone

This one is from women's point of view. And it's one of my favorites for many reasons: it lifted the male burden off the body of works it belongs to. It got me out of my male shoes just for a while and it felt beautiful. 

Sweeping Confetti From the Floor of the Concrete Hole

In the previous work I mentioned I want to cover some of the darker side effects of this particular notion of love. 

Among these, several stand out on which i plan to pay more attention. The end result will be a body of work where each painting will try to address a different notion. White Buffalo tried to address the idea of a certain somebody you wanted bad but just kept evading, forever distant. Sweeping Confetti From the Floor of the Concrete Hole on the other hand, deals with dark side of already accomplished relationship. Thought as diptych, it sets two protagonists in a obviously same environment but physically divided by two separate canvas.  Constant reminder that each bear a world of their own, different and self-sufficient. Perhaps suggesting that in order to work, these two opposite frames of mind will be constantly made to understand and embrace each other despite the disparity between the two. Anyone who spent any time in a relationship knows hard work needed to overcome even the smallest issues along the way. With this in mind one concludes - not giving up may be the hardest thing to do, but in the end just as equally rewarding.  Still, between two canvas the gap will always exist, would it be any fun otherwise..

White Buffalo

This is the first out of several paintings I intend to make for my next show in May. This body of work will deal with very difficult subject matter for me. Love. I am a fan of love. I've gravitated towards it (as a subject) in any form of art I ever considered as important. All the movies, music, books, visual art, literally everything I find even vaguely interesting outside this world of hard reality, one way or the another orbits this massive subject matter. More accurately, I mean erotic love. Relationship between two human beings made of all the fascinating things we choose, decide and make in this crazy, unselfish act.

All of my heroes in art have dealt with it, quite good I might add, thus made it so hard for me to avoid long shadows they cast upon me with their enormous influence. Sitting down with friends, I've mentioned and cited Dylan or Cave so many times - even here on this blog..I can't even begin to explain how small I feel trying to explicitly deal with this.

I want the project to cover some of the darker notions of this particular feel. Not the ones peachy and flowery that we all tend to relate to when things - with the object of our desire - are sailing happily along, but the ones that evolve of misguided notions we have, failed attempts and when things aren't quite living up to expectations.

The title of this work is White Buffalo. It is the first work in this show dealing with one of love's dark sides. It points to that hidden side of life where lives a hidden person, somebody who in reality will never know to what extend they occupied someones days. I'ts that person you tried so hard for them to notice you. The one who you wore all the right clothes for, had all the haircuts, made the playlists, burned them movies, been there at the bar - just the right time, but it never worked. Somehow they stayed immune. And when they didn't, it was even worse. They made you go all the lengths, never getting you anywhere. Spending so much time thinking of them, you'd somehow dream up all they'd never live up to in reality. I wanted to make a painting of an eerie mood, showing a ghost-like someone, always distant, never here. She holds a paper buffalo, of course suggesting Charles Bronson movie. Might as well called it Moby Dick, but the reminiscence of Buffalo's surreal atmosphere recalled from my early boyhood, was the initial impulse for the work. In the end sadly she doesn't exist. Blown out of proportions in our yearning mind, she'll stay there forever.