THE AUTHOR ON HIMSELF AND ON ART

THE VILLAGE is located on the east side of the foot of the Pelister, but in front of the village there is a section of Baba Mountain which closes the view from the side of the sunrise. Because of it, in Nižopole the sun rises one hour later. And on the west, because of Pelister, the sun sets an hour earlier. Well, where should I complain that in my childhood two hours were taken away from me every day and I watched the sun less?

VERY OFTEN we used to go and play in Maku’s mill, Pande’s father. I do not know why, but somehow it was nice to hear the rhythm of the clattering mill while it ground flour. The problem was that the path to the mill led by the village cemetery. And I was afraid to pass there, so I often ran by it.

In the mountain I could ramble all day alone and I was not afraid of anything, except when I went through a thick forest or in a gully, when I felt discomfort, some fear. I could escape that fear, but I couldn’t set free from the fear I felt while passing by the cemetery. It was fear heavy like eternity.

THE FIRST POST-WAR generation in school in Macedonian language. Naturally, we had no books and primers for learning, but we learned more verbally and without a program. Our first teacher was Slavjanka (a partisan); perhaps she had a different name, and this was just her partisan name, I don’t know. I just remember that she was dressed in a partisan uniform. She taught us from a short period and we mainly learned patriotic and partisan songs. Since that time, I remembered only a few verses from the song “We Won’t Stand Your Yoke”.

AT THAT TIME there wasn’t any other gallery in Skopje than “Daut Pasha Hamam,” which played the role of a small Louvre for us. Very often we went there to be fed with fine arts energy.

IN THE SUMMER OF 1957, together with Naso Bekarovski, I went looking for shops in the bazaar to write logos to earn money for a holiday in the Youth Hostel Association in Ohrid. We went into a shop for dairy products which didn’t have any logo and we offered to write one and paint a composition of dairy products.

The boss, who was probably a good heart and wanted to help us, told us: “Look, kids, I don’t know what a composition is but let’s have it.”

MY INTEREST in the surreal or the fantastic did not come as a conscious process. I think that my search for the meaning of existence, my exploration of new unknown worlds, as well as the way of communicating with the audience, was best expressed with the language of the surreal, the language of symbols and the unknown. It doesn’t mean that I couldn’t express myself with any other artistic language, but at that time it was most suitable for me and so I began to use that particular language.

A DRY ROOT with a big hole in the middle was hanging on the wall in my studio. I felt like that hole in the root constantly wanted to look at me from the wall. I cut out an eye from a magazine and I mounted it in the hole of the root. Now the eye really watched me. Thus the idea for the painting was born.

HORSES do not constitute a special cycle that begins and ends in a period of time, but they follow all my cycles and occur in a different role and with a special purpose. For example, in the ecology cycle they bring the Apocalypse, in the roots and organisms they carry life, in the fossilized shadows they represent the traces of time, and in the energies in the space they are pure energy.

ABOUT 40 YEARS AGO I expressed my admiration of Ohrid and the Ohrid Lake for the first time with watercolors. I was especially fascinated by the Ohrid streets paved with stones, the old decaying houses scarred by time. And now again, after 40 years, I admire Ohrid, or rather think about Ohrid in watercolors. In my thoughts the Ohrid Lake is a sea captured by the surrounding mountains. Only the rivers can smoothly come into and leave the lake. They are the only real connection with the sea.

I MAKE water nails and I bind Prometheus to the rocks. The sun gives away the light, the heat, the shadows – it makes both the day and the night. I am thinking and sitting in one place, at one point, I am static with dynamic thoughts.

I LEARNED ABOUT THE WATERCOLORS in the fifth grade in Bitola. They were some colored pills, but I didn’t know how to use them. I remember, I was supposed to color a drawing with folk pattern. To dissolve the paint, I spit the tablet and then using a brush I colored the drawing which in the end, frankly, was a disaster. I have no idea why I didn’t know that they were supposed to dissolve in water, when they’re called – watercolors.

PAINTING A WATERCOLOR, you travel with elation, feeling that the journey will be short and the goal will be reached quickly and therefore you can fully focus on the act of painting with maximum concentration and with mood dictated by the atmosphere of the very image. Then your mind is relaxed, your hand is calm and steady. The color begins to flow from the brush. You almost don’t notice the mixture of colors; somehow they adapt themselves where to fit. The watercolors flow through the paintbrush like blood through the veins. The paper is no longer paper, the colors are no longer colors, and all becomes a picture – a painting of a new world that has just been born.

UNTIL ONE MARCH DAY in the 1980s, in my paintings there were many black holes, cyborgs and unknown aircrafts, bleeding wounds, dumping grounds with a stench of rotten iron, rusty fruits, stale waters in dead rivers, inhospitable landscapes and forbidden zones.

With the emergence of a new cycle “roots and organisms,” new worlds were born with a lot of light, a lot of blue and a wide range of warm colors that breathe with life.

THE IDEA IS NOT A FLASH that suddenly appears in your head, nor is it a clear vision that should only be transferred to the canvas. Ideas are the result of extensive sketching and collecting impressions of those things that excited me or interested me to see them as paintings. The sketches I collected many years ago, seemingly forgotten, just wait for the day to be realized because they are the sparkle which should fuel the fire of the future painting~