From "Lust from Nostalgia" to "Lost in Reflection"

 

“Until 2015 I had a name and from 2015 to 2016 I removed 3 letters from it. I removed my name as a sign of a new beginning. I am the same man, but this is my stage name. Both names are valuable, but they are different beings.”

Since the solo exhibition in Berlin, 2017 to the Paris’one, 2024, Sasho Blazes generates five major exhibitions, five inflection points. The sinuous line of his work can be traced through his particularities.  In his work it is necessary to understand the particularity of each exhibition not as its difference but by the way of approaching the common theme of the five, the question of the disappearance of the portrait. His presence, his invisibility. The journey.

 

The five 5 : « Lust for Nostagia », Berlin 2017; « Colored collection of joy », Skopje, 2019; « High in no man's land », National Gallery of the Republic of North Macedonia, 2022; « Between lines », Graz 2023; « Diving to the Bottom », Paris, 2024).

• « Lust for Nostagia », Berlin 2017. Corresponds to the period 2015 and 2017, when the artist create his new name. The works on display were influenced by Romanian painting of the time.  Quasi-unique presence of an individualized and recognizable portrayed subject.  The Cellebrities. Vivid colors enriched, barely diluted, deployed by the wide brush passages that decompose, in strong strokes, the image of the recognizable subject.

« From 2018, I made my own studio. I don’t feel a stranger anymore ». A stranger, and so?

S.B. belongs to the ethnic group of the Aromanians who, without having a established nation, have lived for more than two thousand years in the Balkans. The Aromanians retain their customs and traditions. Despite having a small population, the Aromanians have had considerable influence in history neighbouring countries.

In 2001, S.B. will leave North Macedonia to start his artistic education at the Romanian Academy of Fine Arts (Bucharest) where the essentials aspects of art will be covered.

After obtaining his master’s degree, collaborating with his professors, exhibiting and making two important publications on engraving, S.B. exposes his first works in Europe and the East.

In 2009, returns to Macedonia, which despite recognizing it will feel for a while alien to his own country. A stranger.

 

• « Colored collection of joy », Skopje, 2019. This second exhibition is a rupture and a bridge in his path. It was the first exhibition made with artworks from his studio. The pictorial matter "hides" the human figure without it completely disappearing. Thus a formal struggle is declared. The colors are revealed against the pictorial subject, they arrive at a combat in which the pictural matter drowns the image of the recognizable subject. The paradox is that young brushstrokes of colour manage to create new, turbulent, a priori unidentifiable images. The image of the explosion at the same time in which the image explodes.

« I'm living by the lake. Every day and night, I am watching the water shapes. Especially, it was interesting at night. I tried to make a version of dark water in my studio using nylon. »

 

• « High in no man's land », National Gallery of the Republic of North Macedonia, 2022. Physical painting into Corona age. Locked in the studio drawing sketches of the news from my laptop. The night. The black color ». Plates and traces, penetrating bodies in a shady marsh of lines, ribbons, hair. Eels floating in the stagnant waters of a lake, they cross and devour the shadow of which once was that recognizable human image. Stolen and repeatedly superimposed forms create the image of the lake’s membrane.

« I got to draw. Drawingoncanvasdrawingondrawingcombinealotoffigures asicallyinactionIamdrawingandsketchingeverydaythenewsimagesfromcoronaperiodfrom theprotestsfromthefightsintheprotestmainly. »

 

•  « Between lines », Graz 2023. The white canvas seems invaded by a succession of endless lines. This dynamic generates a world of immaterial beings without volume in action. Just air floating between the lines. Some grey strokes of paint. And a colored abstracts forms reminiscence from the previous « Colored colection of joy ». 

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« Series Black Night ». « So, I came up with the idea of ​​painting without colors. As I see, darkness appears and relegates the intense colors to near-disappearance. So I did it just like you do with a painting so you can juxtapose one drawing on top of another».

Squiggly lines over the white voids. A heavy darkness swallows up the old pure colors. Until they are unrecognizable. It is as a reality returning, but the image is there. It fights, it fights continuously, without stopping. It is alive. The “presence” of blue seems to devour the image, absorbing the color, leaving black traces on a pale, torn marine figure. Darkness generates blue, just like in nature. 

 

• « Diving to the Bottom », Paris, 2024. The watter membrane is seen from the bottom of the water. Upside down. Whilst in the bottom, we can see the world that inhabits it and the laborious journey of the material light that is lost to our sight. Seen from the bottom, the surface is covered with remains of living matter rocked by the waves. The supporting material is the tarpolin folded both in squares and in folds stretched towards the corners. The tarpolin keeps its sombre shine in details that appear rarely and thanks to the reflection of the light outside its material. These folds draw linear spaces like a banner. The square folds remind us of the folded tablecloths in 16th and 18th century painting. The folds in the tablecloths helped to locate the table objects of each diner and their space on the table.

The lake is on the studio. « I tried to do water effects in the studio. After that, I did experiments in the water at night from the surface, color games in the dark and with light. Then, while diving I look for places with different perspectives ». Out side down Upside down.

 

On The Five 5, S.B. artwork appears as the journey of immanence of the figure.

 

Lost in reflection

  1.    holes, 2024, 187x160cm, oil on tarpauline

  2.    lost in pink reflection 2024 ,60x50cm, oil arylic, resin on canvas

  3.    memory from the bottom 2024, 240x155cm, oil on tarpauline

  4.    transparent bottom 2024, 60x50cm, oil arylic, resin on canvas

  5.    view from upside down 2024, 60x50cm, oil arylic, resin on canvas

  6.    water sound 2024, 60x50cm, oil arylic, resin on canvas.

"Lost in Reflexion" speaks of a passivity in the face of the turbulence. An invisible witness to movement. You cannot control any situation. But ,You must enter in a cold Lake watter. Undressed. Normaly. Dive to the bottom. The deep end many times, sometimes, only in mind. From the depth, blend the voracious pink inhabitants of the bottom. Finally, look at the other side of the surface. The inhabited mass of water and its song. Life within the water. They are looking at you from the upside down. The surface is a membrane that a rocket breaks when traverses the ozone Polluted? polluted sometimes yes but there are holes in the bottom. sometimes.  pale blue gaz, it smells and suddendly appear pure white cutouts. Some medium geometric shapes. What are they? they are shadows shadows and their reflections. That's what I thought. White shadows, devoid of color.

 

 

Camilo Racana

Paris, 12.X.2024