When I was five, I had long blond hair down to my shoulders, a curious eye and a smile that loved the entire world around me! And all things colorful excited me deeply.
Throughout my eight years of primary school, I sensed the surge of a great love towards drawing! To draw everything the eye can – and cannot – see, and yet teem with life! It was a consuming thought that gave me no rest… I watched my mother embroider flowers and birds around them. I was amazed: through the colour I could smell the flowers and hear the song of the colourful birds; that endless, bright and impeccably clean sound that filled my soul with inspiring dreams slowly revealed to me the secrets of the world…
I completed high school education in my city and enrolled at the School of Applied Arts. I chose painting! Five years later, after completing it, I went to Belgrade. I was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts. I graduated after five years and enrolled at the Academy’s post-graduate studies. I became a member of the former Union of Artists of Yugoslavia. I participated in joint exhibitions, salons and biennales. I travelled across Europe and saw the cultural heritage of art in the famous museums and galleries.
I still had long hair, and my curiosity did nothing but expand. The smile that loved the world became a doubt that kept me drawing and painting, reading and writing; listening to the music of silence deep within my consuming thoughts: who am I, who is this Man I see around me all the time, how is that world out there different from this world within me…
I lived (and still do) burning away and wandering through my thoughts; I suffered and erred, I began and desisted, and then again began only to desist again, I fought (and still do), dismissing fallacies and empty promises. I realized that peace and quiet do not exist in the Act of Creation. Everything is always already a beginning and all beauty is covered with deep secrets. Painting is an exploration, a search for one’s own meanings and truths, which should be recognized by other people as their own.
I have made solo exhibitions in Skopje, Belgrade, Vienna, Rome, Sofia, Istanbul, Kiev and Saint Petersburg! My paintings can be found in private homes and public buildings!
I have received awards and acknowledgements; the highest State prize in the Republic of Macedonia for special contribution in the fields of culture and arts; the highest prize of the Association of Artists of Macedonia, and others. But all that seems part of human Vanity.
A man and a woman once approached me at the market. Upon asking and confirming that I was, indeed, the artist, they said: “When will you exhibit again? We went to your exhibition every day and found it delightful”.
Now I realize what the true prize is! I no longer have long hair. It is now white. My forehead is wrinkled. The look in my eyes, though ever curious, is now dark. I still love the world, though now only as a model of the past and the future.
I know that the past has gone never to return, and the future is unknown. Where past and future meet – in that still point – there my life flows and my painting finds its birth… There, that five-year-old boy with long blond hair down to his shoulders is still alive, well and happy.
VG