Beyond Parallel Universes Painting

I am Dragoslav Ristic, commonly known as Goss. I was born in Belgrade, former-Yugoslavia in 1942. From 1946, I lived in a city called Pozarevac where both my parents were born. Growing up we were relatively poor as my father, who was a train-driver, was killed in a train accident when I was 12 years old. Life was very difficult but we managed to survive. I started school in 1948 and completed technical college in 1962. I achieved a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering and Technical Illustration. For 2 years after college, I worked as a school teacher teaching technical subjects. From 1965-1966, I was in the National Army. I then worked at the Railways as a technician from 1967-1969, and 2 more years I spent working at a factory as a technician. In my youth, I was sporty and excelled in wrestling, rowing and table tennis. At 29 years of age, looking for an adventure and a better life, I moved to Vienna, Austria and worked for Siemens as an electrician. While there, I organised a permit to travel to South Africa where I worked as Technical Illustrator until 1985, when I opened up my own Serbian Restaurant. As a child, I never had the opportunity to buy expensive art materials or get any formal art education, but I always loved to sketch and paint. I would use any material I could source such as wood, and was fond of creating icons that I would age to look hundreds of years old. 1985-1992, was a significant period in my artistic development as I happened to meet and become good friends with Vladislav Lalicki, an extremely talented artist living in Johannesburg. He became my mentor and inspired me to take my love of art to another level. I was very productive during this period, creating oil paintings on wood, glass and canvas of still life’s, scenery, Serbian traditional art and some abstract art. However, it was only in 2004, when I started painting full time, that I managed to find my new direction and really explore innovative painting styles. I am currently interested in painting more symbolically where I try to represent other universes, different civilizations, different perspectives of time and space and try to visually portray the Fourth and Fifth Dimension.