TOUCH, 2016 Painting

Painting made after a photograph of a woman kissing her dead partner goodbye. PAINTINGS 2016 “In the past century, which was marked by major changes and rapid progress, (especially) two main modes of artistic creation came to the forefront from the abundance of concurrent styles, orientations and movements in art. The first mode is artistic formalism, based on the idea of pure form, which is at the same time a cause and a consequence of the artist’s creative force. On the other hand, there is art which refers to the actual phenomena from the real world and translates them in a more or less narrative manner into the artistic language. The first mode was predominant approximately up until the mid-1980s, after which the reflexive and narrative art gradually prevailed in the artistic discourse. This distinction is extremely generalized, since the history of modern and contemporary art is much more complex, unresolved and intertwined. Nevertheless, these seemingly diametrically opposed positions often reflect the fundamental stance of many artists and art enthusiasts. Belonging to one or the other mode is not necessarily based on belonging to a certain generation, although art inevitably reflects social and technological changes and ultimately always mirrors the time and space in which it is created.” “Boštjan Jurečič declaratively belongs to the first pole, which favours pure artistic language, in which content is hidden as well. His works thus do not have linear stories and deliberate features which would steer the spectator towards a specific interpretation. Still, Jurečič’s paintings are figurative and evocative. They express the everydayness which is becoming scary and almost grim, due to its ordinariness.” “The artist emphasizes that he chooses the motifs or source materials completely at random, even though the process behind his artistic work could easily lead to different assumptions. The creation of individual painting begins by selecting a motif, which the artist finds in the abundance of everyday media images – in newspapers, magazines, books, advertising materials and online. Even the choice of what is depicted is a singular statement that reflects the artist’s volitions or at least his flow of thoughts. Perhaps the decision is subconscious, based on the random visual impulses that still indicate his attitude towards the world. In the period of visual inflation, such motifs can be perceived with a substantial degree of irony, since they may reflect the artificiality of the idealized world of the media images, the desire for one’s five minutes of fame and various others characteristics of the society of the (constant) spectacle. However, the artist’s intention is not to be sarcastic or ironic, but intuitive and atmospheric. He believes that the motif is a necessary evil in a painting. The mankind has trouble imagining things beyond our own perceptions and experience.” “The set of paintings may not have a common denominator in terms of motif and content, but it is nevertheless united by a similar atmosphere of an unestablished situation. Nowadays, in the flood of the visual, one has trouble controlling what will be imprinted in one’s memory, which is selective and unpredictable. Boštjan Jurečič thus translates on the canvas the accidental impulses of today’s dominant (popular) culture, which is at all times predictable and instant. He translates the profane motifs into (high) art. But what does the way from ordinariness to sanctification look like? These questions are probably frequently asked by the ones who try to understand the world of art and its laws. The world of symbolic values is in fact inevitably contradictory and unpredictable. These questions are constantly raised also by Jurečič, who in spite of the formalist and technicistic intentions, referring to the exploration of the artistic language, occasionally also expresses a covert institutional critique in his works” Parts of intro text for 2017 solo show at ZDSLU by Miha Colner, curator of the show.