Uros Paternu©Untitled 08 Painting

One of Uros Paternu's theoretical essays includes a statement which sounds like a personal manifesto: "My main volition is to paint living paintings". And indeed from the very first meeting, before entering deeper into the conversation, we are seized by his latest paintings' vibrational energy and intense dynamics, which make it seem as though a secret life is unfolding in the depths of the painted canvas. This vivacity, at times palpitating and cheerful, while at others dark, muted and slow-paced, is the result of a carefully premeditated process of image construction. The fundamental reference frame of Paternu's painting is colour and its sensual and emotional expressiveness, which is achieved by each individual creation of tones and color fields as well as their mutual interactions. Colour is applied to the canvas with spontaneous, albeit tamed strokes and with rhythmic brushes of thick and translucent layers of paint, which frequently creates an illusion of submerged abstract space residing within the image field. The path into its interior is found with the help of thoughtful spatial cuts, implied by the juxtaposition of colour or tone contrasts, while the opening up of the surface into the depth is sometimes predicted by the decomposition of the image field. In the resulting compositions the dialectical play of colours, strokes and effects of illusion meld into a suggestive seething energy that comes to life in its full force only in dialogue with the spectator. For it is then that the scattered and seemingly arbitrary energetic surges join and thicken into associative figural components that evoke images of veiled human beings and strange mysterious bodies, an interplay of meaningful movements and theatrical gestures, facial contours and a glimmer of dancing shadows, overlapping each other in a whirlwind of emotions and a furious pace of passion. In certain most energetic places these components, assisted by sensory, emotional and symbolic values of colours, manage to fuse into a dynamic theatrical performance, during which, as if in yesterday's dream, the unconscious awakens and visualizes. The spectator, who imagines himself as a director, does not even notice, when he turned into an actor.