T heir works are the legacy of gurative and fan- tastic ne arts in Serbia, and painter and sculp- tor Zoran Velimanović, born 1964 in the town of Ćuprija, began sketching to soothe his soul even as a small boy. His parents were lovers of paintings and they had many works, though they didn’t deal in art. He moved to Belgrade at the age of 14. Like most of his contemporaries, he studied law, partly because he was interested in history and Roman law. “The other parts of that science didn’t attract me and I abandoned my studies. I played guitar in my own rock band,“Varšava”[Warsaw], in Belgrade, and we toured around Yugoslavia. After that I sold insurance policies, and then antiques. Finding my own way, I lived in Paris, Nice and Düsseldorf. It was there I rst painted, as a hob- by,” says Velimanović. Since the mid ‘90s he’s resided in Belgrade. He’s also worked as an estate agent. He started painting in Belgrade after turning 30, and nobody taught him how to do so. “There are no better professors than Picasso, Rem- brandt, Bosch. First I painted a little oil on a canvas, “Pur- gatory”, 1994. I sold it to a neighbour. Then I painted an- other picture, then another... When I’d gathered around ten, I showed them to Olja Ivanjicki. She supported me and helped me stage my rst solo exhibition,“Cold Night Before A Great Event”, in April 1997. The exhibition ran for just one night at the Astakos Club in central Belgrade, and that evening there was a police cordon on the streets due to a national protest.” He avoids people in order to be able to paint as much as possible, because painting is his most impor- tant life purpose and adventure. His paintings are his sto- ries, and he sees life like the lm The Matrix. He claims that one should be diminutive and humble, always and in everything, because one who is disillusioned by size is led the wrong way. “A gift for painting is the will of God, I am his conduc- tor through brushes and canvases. I’m a good machine of God, a BMW that won’t let you down, but I’m not the driv- er – God is. I paint only what I feel. Sometimes that’s on- ly one picture in a year. I painted“Purgatorium”on a sev- en-metre canvas over the course of nine months in 2007. He is equally dedicated to painting, sketching, sculpt- ing and a camera lens. Two antipodal points – beauty and brutality, passion and death, decline and phantas-
magoricism – are permanent features of his work. He doesn’t create sketches for his paintings, choosing in- stead to immediately create them on canvas. For sculp- tures he uses sh scales, metal, bone, hair, plastic etc. He’s exhibited throughout Western Europe. “How do you nd the right path, when, as the writer Dante would say, it is composed of the lost? Perhaps I seek it every day by descending to the darkness, the cold and the depths, because that’s actually just what painting is. That darkness, like the night, which often so sweetly calls one to sleep, actually gives the spirit of wakefulness and illumination. It makes you observe better, to be more de- cisive and more enterprising. That’s where wisdom ap- pears, like a strong light, and where rare, precious and even magical knowledge festers. A man can only get ac- quainted with himself if he’s brave enough to descend down to his own darkness and depths, to there nd ad- vancements and answers. Only in situations at the lim- its, when you depart from everything known, can you progress,” says Velimanović. Winter is his time. Hidden in his studio, he spends hours painting. “I paint pictures because I like to, not because I have to. I have no time to lose. One day I won’t regret not hav- ing spent more time in Paris or Buenos Aires, but rather that I didn’t paint one more picture. I essentially only can’t survive with water, air and painting. I pretty much live like a monk. Except sometimes there are women around me, and I dare to smoke and drink alcohol.” His studio feels like his own temple. He also happily gifts picture to whomever he wants. He does sell them to everyone even when they don’t ask for the price. He at- tends exhibition openings only when he must. He most likes to start painting in the evening, when he’s complet- ed all other obligations. Then he paints for hours. “I learned to relax. Through dreams, considerations, there are signs and symbols to lead us everywhere. We are unimportant as individuals. There are those to take care of the order of things. As I paint, I feel energy, like an ember in a fantastical energetic mosaic. When I n- ish a picture, that energy dissipates. I paint for myself, not for anyone else. It’s just important for me that I and those dear to me are healthy, and that I paint well. Better times are yet to come for me. When you’re young, you’re too green and sour.”
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