Prostor 2001
An English rose on a Serbian Hill
Dobrodošli u park skulptura u Bregu. Ako želite da čitate na ovom sajtu na srpskom, pogedajte ovaj link.
In July 2001, despite spending months discussing participants, the only person apart from Zoran Matic who we knew was coming was Paul Smith. Unlike in Serbia where many things seem to be successfully completed at the last minute, we had to book Paul’s ticket and check his visa requirements early on. Meanwhile my wife Tija and I had been at a painting colony in the Tara Mountains and met up with Slajf. Although primarily a landscape artist, like so many artists he enjoyed three-dimensional expression but had done little sculptural work since earlier in his career. The chemistry was immediate and although we still had only the outline of how the sculpture colony would work, he was keen to join in and to produce a mixed media metal piece.
Brille was a long-standing friend of Zoran’s and although he had only a few days to spare from his own artistic commitments on the Montenegrin coast, he was eager to spend a few days in the hills away from the rush of the summer season in his hometown of Petrovac na More.
Dragan a well-known stone sculptor was a colleague of Zoran’s and they had been at many colonies together. He had some spare time before his next colony and was also keen to spend time in the quiet of the hills away from his hometown of Pozega.
So within days the composition of the colony was finalised and the 5 artists travelling by plane, train, bus & car arrived in early August 2001 with nothing more than a small bag of clothes, a few basic tools and some ideas. The challenge for us all was how to turn their ideas into lasting three-dimensional objects.
Given a fully fitted studio resplendent with all the accruements of a sculpture workshop what could possibly give us any reason to doubt the success of the venture? Two slight problems, firstly no electricity and secondly no studio! The location was a hilltop at 1120m open to the elements, rain, fog, wind and even some sunshine. The sculpture mediums weighed up to 500kg and all we had was a 5kW generator (built for heights of less than 1000m!) and a few power tools which could not all be used at the same time for risk of burning out the generator, which also served to provide power and water to the house where we and all our guests spend our time together.
Him & Her
Zoran Matic
Reclaimed Railway Sleeper (Painted) with metal trident
2002
Blood sweat and tears were the order of the day, alongside a not insignificant amount of wine, whisky and the locally made plum brandy. Not necessarily recommended when working with angle grinders, welding equipment and chain saws, but remember this is Serbia where necessity is definitely the mother of invention.
After a couple of days of relaxation and banter with all of us eager to see what ideas the others had, each artist retreated into his own element to work with their chosen material. Paul although trained in painting ceramics, before going on to create primarily farm animals in fired clay, had started to work in wire in England despite problems with his hands. He had already asked me to find wire for him of varying thicknesses and quickly made a maquette for his impending wire sculpture of a wolf.
Slajf meanwhile was busy adjusting to the climate of the hills but not to the water, insisting on drinking the rather muddy stuff he had brought with him from his native Vojvodina, although just why no one could understand with such wonderful cold water gushing from a natural spring just a few hundred metres away. For him we had gathered together an assortment of metal, rods, springs, mesh, wheels etc, and he spent his time grinding, cutting and welding.
Brile thought little of the spring water, even less of Slajf’s muddy water, and instead satisfied his thirst with his father’s red wine that he brought with him and I have to say was most drinkable. His artistic talent was founded in ink drawings constructed from his home area’s octopus ink, but he was equally at home in any material and with any tools whether chisel or brush.
The rest of us made do with slivovic, although Dragan a little too much. As a result although he eagerly assisted Slajf with his welding, he did so without the help of goggles and ended up in our darkened loft with his eyes covered by sliced potatoes for 2 days until he had recovered enough to attack 2 large pieces of locally acquired coral crag limestone with an axe!
Zoran had recently finished his Masters degree and was pleased that it had forced him to pay attention to sculpture for the first time since his earlier academic art days. He was a renowned portrait artist and although ‘morbidly Baconesque’ in his style had a tremendous drawing talent. He spent much of his time contemplating shepherds and their sheep in the hills before settling on something a little more suggestive, and went about instructing those with a better talent for using a chainsaw, on roughing out his sculpture in an old wooden railway sleeper before he attacked it with chisels and paint.
"Big Bertha" Silver Birch Trunk
Erected 2002
Pictured 2006
Decayed 2014
Zoran Matic
July 2004
Within a week, and in the case of Dragan less than a day! Seven sculptures were finished and cement bases made for each. I should not have been surprised at this rapid pace of construction as many years before one of the artists that Tija and I represent in our Inuit Art Gallery in London following a hangover, proceeded to work with enormous energy on an almost metre high dancing stone polar bear, fully polished and balanced, ready for an exhibition within 5 days in the basement of our house.
The same energy applied to our artists in Serbia. Despite a lack of materials, tools and most normal facilities readily associated with sculpting, their enthusiasm and group vigour ensured that each of them smiled when they uncovered their respective objects; in the case of both Brile and Dragan they even managed 2 pieces each!
The pictures of each sculpture generally speak for themselves but to do justice to the artists the title of each with an explanation is merited.