Zeljko St

“While many seek peace in noise and motion, I meet myself in front of a blank canvas.”

Painting, for me, is not about performance.
It is a silent act of honesty.

Every work I create begins not with an idea, but with presence — with the decision to stop running from myself.
In that stillness, thoughts surface. Doubt appears.
But also — fragments of something real, something worth shaping.

My art is not loud. It does not ask for attention.
It is built in the space between chaos and form —
in the pause where the hand continues even when the mind doesn't know why.

If you sense something while looking at my work —
a quiet echo, a pause, a recognition —
then we’ve met beyond words.

In the silence of the canvas,
I don't escape the world.
I return to it — one brushstroke at a time.

Because artists cannot run.
The brush won’t let them.
The canvas sees everything.
Silence does not forgive.

But that’s why, when someone looks at a painting and feels something —
it’s not about beauty.
It’s about respect.
For the one who had the courage to stand exposed in front of the canvas.

Kazakhstan's Academy of Fine Arts, 2023

2020-Abstract Painting Academy is an online version. Bigger, Faster, Fresher, Looser Abstract Painting North Carolina.
1992-Technical school.