While I use mostly dancers and acrobats as protagonists in my earlier paintings, dealing with a comparable form of public presentation, performing for an audience in a states name, in these paintings the political system itself is now performing, thus creating an opposite situation. It is not really clear though, looking at the archive footage, if these performances were merely a show of dominance or were after all meant for the pleasure of the audience. In either way one of the goals of these performances were the adulation of the system and for this the inherent perfectionism of the figures created by the police squadrons, is essential.

I was inspired to these paintings by Peter Bruegel the Elder, notably „Children´s games“ and „The Blind leading the Blind“, who are ironically presenting communities, their hierarchys, behaviour and social structuring.

Translation Philipp Koch

My work in political context

As I grew up in a country that was dominated by a political environment, this greatly influenced my artistic development. Until my eighth year I grew up in socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Early childhood also meant participating in the mass parades and street performances. After the change of systems and the nationalist civil war I immigrated to Croatia. By the time I was 15 I had experienced socialism and war as two political systems and come to know their consequences firsthand. For this reason, I did not become a politically active artist, but an artist who grapples with the politically charged concepts of freedom and oppression in the context of physical movement.

Translation Christian Lutz

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working process - studio view, april 2014

working process - Studio view, april 2014

working process - studio view, april 2014

working process - studio view, april 2014