Interview for Radio Novi Sad led by Aleksandra Rajic, November 9th 2018.
AR: Your latest exhibition is called "Good Moments". It seems to me that it's not just emotion, it's a lifestyle that is inscribed in your intention to name the exhibition.
ME: That's exactly the essence, it's my decision to focus on what's good. Of course it's caused by many bad moments in life. We all have them on a daily basis, but in time we begin to believe that good moments either do not exist, or are very rare, or that they are completely insignificant, that they have no power to change anything for the better, and this is actually a big mistake. Over the past few years I've been going through a rough period. Whatever I did, it could not possibly go my way. I felt so helpless when I actually realized that I am responsible only for my own actions, that those who do wrong things, make their own problems, and I just have to worry not to do the same. Everything can be both good and bad, in the end all that was happening turned out right to happen just like that. Of course, we can not see that at the moment, but later it all settles into place. And since nothing is not only good or bad, there is also a balance between bad and good times. My opinion is that they have the same equity that I do not need to devote so much attention to these bad moments, and turning to good times actually I saw that they begin to multiply, more and more, so as the good events in my life, along with more good people, and even those who used to be bad, suddenly started to show their good side. These good moments are actually some of the things that are happening to us all the time, nothing epochal, nothing revolutionary, no gains at lottery, and so on. It's literally drinking tea in five, having some small pleasures, like walking with your dog, reading a book, a good conversation with someone, a nice breakfast, especially if it's with a dear person, the color of leaves on the street, the light. These are really nice things, and when you look at how important such things are, consider that these other things that upset you, disturb you, are also small, and beside that, they are useless, these are at least useful.
AR: The advantage of artists is that you can create your own world that. It seems that the point of exhibitions of such topics, such life attitudes, is to transfer them to the spectator.
ME: There comes the story about responsibility I mentioned. As an artist and someone who has the privilege of creating and self healing through creativity, I have a responsibility to what I am sending to the world, because what I do through my work, it first comes back to me, then when I release it to the world, it continues its own life. Anyone who meets with my painting, experiences some kind of emotion. I have a responsibility to what I did to people, whether I disturbed them, or advised them to look around and see that joy can multiply. Fine art is the most straightforward, it reaches you all at once, unlike other arts. For example, it takes time for the book to be read, theater show or concert to hear, watch. But visual artwork is received instantly, and then it takes time to analyze it. Because it is so direct, that all this content can reach you at one point, and it also has greater responsibility. You can leave a book or performance you do not like, but some visual work, comes in total right up to you. Art has been used throughout history to educate the illiterate people, to announce the government’s messages, and when I look through the history of art, most of those messages are based on fear. Scare the people: if you are not good you will burn in hell, if you devour you are doing wrong. But you also give them ideas. And when you already give people ideas, it might be better to do it the other way, to give them good ideas. Because, as far as I can see, the world has never been scared enough of these criticisms and has not improved. There are still problems, quarrels, sin...
AR: But, can we fix it?
ME: I do not know if art can fix it, but that's my idea, let's try it like this now, through a nice word.
AR: Let’s go back for a moment to your paintings. It seems that in these works, your palette is in a way more pure, sublime, than before. Until now, colors were beautiful, bright, but they screamed a bit. In the new paintings, they are more quiet, pastel, or even more profound. Have you seen some changes there yourself?
ME: It probably has to do with my own maturing, with my personal experience of the world. As I am older, I need to calm down, so do my colors. They are still vivid, but not as aggressive, they have also calmed down a bit. In the visual sense, these paintings are sublimation of everything I've done so far. There is also a landscape, a human figure, a sky and a collage, and other artistic elements that I used before, so I made every painting as a story for itself. I simply traveled through it, until it's over.
