A story from the studio – Željko Jančić

My paintings can be viewed at the level of appearances, and then enjoy a purely aesthetic experience. However, that is not my goal, to stay on the surface. With my paintings, I invite you to take an active part in my work. They are mirrors. The more intensely the observer is recognized, the more violent his reaction will be. Awakened emotions are drawn into a whirlpool, but which is not the goal of getting lost in it. The goal is to find oneself again, after peeking deep into one’s interior and facing all its distortions. I am not someone who judges, and I am aware of my weaknesses, I understand others. Only someone who has experienced a lot himself can be aware of all possible deviations. Look, says one of the pictures, your eyes are bulging and you have blood on your hands. Is that a big enough price, then he asks, to live in abundance?

By beheading my characters, I shift the center of gravity in a person, from the head, to the body. The center of the human body is the heart. The ego that has mastered the mind is responsible for all human deviations, for the inhuman. My beheaded characters did not lose their head, they just found the focus of their existence from an ego-fueled mind, found in the chest area and uncompromisingly began a heart-guided life.

Human characters are often depicted as children’s drawings. There is no coincidence in that. With the lines of children’s drawings with an abundance of bright colors, I unequivocally show how much the child is present in myself. That’s not the end of the story. The interaction between the observer and my images, passing through several layers, in one of the highest, leads to the evocation of the inner child that is in each of us. The vortex of emotions into which the observers are drawn, and which swirls in them, opens living wounds, creating sharp pain through confrontation. Only the bravest will endure to the end and be forced to remember who they really are, what they were like until the system forced them to integrate, and at the same time they assimilated, forgetting who they are, forgetting that they were once authentic beings, full of joy in life. .

Those less brave will give up, unable to bear that amount of pain because it is easier to go through life “with your eyes closed”, as I called one of my opuses.

Željko Jančić