▪ INTERVIEW: MAGICAL WORLD OR NECESSARY SUGAR CUBE (Ružica
Z.N. Stojković, Newspaper "Danas", 2003.)
A
girl with downy flapped cap, that "must to have" detail of the
generation inherited from the pile of values, ideals and all together
"heavenly chases" of her own parents and "close relatives",
appeared before time to the appointed meeting. She was sitting at the chair
squirming as if she were at the dentist`s. She was speeding up the beginning of
the conversation, which was a possible indicator that she would be a little
pushed to speak, because it seemed that she had been one of those who liked
"to push fast to the end". Music that slowly overcame our hosts cozy
autumn saloon, tucked up with the fragrances of early coming autumn, dimmed
light of delicately placed lamps, as if it were that necessary associate to
relax a young woman in the lack of time. However, she pulled her cap even more
to her flaming eyes.
Who
is Suzana actually? It was a kind of beginning.
-
From the earliest days that I remember, I was doing only the things that I was
feeling, not accepting to do anything I didn`t like. Painting is something that
was making me complete, that I liked, since at the age of four I started
drawing and very soon my first horse in natural size appeared on the wall of my
room. It is still there, always waits for me when I visit my house in Vranje,
beautiful, magical, the one - because it is alive all the time. Fifteen years
later I stopped painting.
On
the question "why", she decisively responds "way too personal
question". On the repeated question, she more willingly answers that she
would never paint just for painting "it is completely spontaneous in my
case, I never know when I would paint, simply I do not force myself - escaping
from "personal". Not before the insinuation that arts are before all
possibly personal matter, Suzana Stojanović accepts. "I stopped
instinctively, as I instinctively paint. The circumstances were like I felt
that I "had to" stop and with that I protected somehow both painting
and myself. I was suffering, but frankly my paintings were suffering too, deep
down in myself, but when I returned 13 years ago I think that it had to be like
that somehow. It was a period of my maturing, a period of new perceptions. The
things I see now, I could not see then, possibly I was not able to see then".
Was
that creative silence, collecting and "storing on one safe place"
perception?
-
I knew that "it" will happen one day again, that is why I kept
silent, I collected, took care of that, although the return to painting could
happen even after thirty years, or in any other unspecific period. However, I
kept all palettes and a few unfinished paintings.
The
period of silence ceases after thirteen years and preserved passion of nineteen
years old girl starts to pour out. You, as a young woman started "once
again". Did something specific happen then?
-
It is complex, and that sort of my silence is a new beginning. Both of them
started from me, nothing from the outer world did motivate myself, all was only
in me. Love moves me-belief that in this world there is something more supreme,
something "close personal". I did not go into painting for money or
fame. I paint because I like to do that, I cannot explain that, it is my world.
I do not know at all how does the moment of going into painting looks like, the
moment of getting into that beautiful world. Indeed, while I think when I do my
drawing, I recall of that, but in the moment I have palette in my hands,
everything stops and colour occupies me and carries me away.
Your
paintings belong to modern, high realism or hyperrealism. There are big
disputes and very much divided thoughts on these "movements"?
-
My thinking about any sort of realism, no matter which degree you give to it,
is not going into details, of, for example, horse portrait or human portrait.
It is important to represent real space, real creature-person, real part of a
day, it is realism for me, all lights, shadows, reality in richness of endless
lights play. It is always connected to my mood, moment when I see something in
some way and how it all looks like "in my head". While I paint I do
not stick to some of the principles, I paint how I feel. Painting is freedom.
People feel that, painting is love, painting is artist`s soul. Painting is
something more than painting itself - it is a "subject" of
observation. If painting is not "alive", people can feel that, I do
not know how myself, but one painting is more than a painting, it is life and
freedom.
Freedom
as a universal postulate of humanity, is one high and hard objective,
frequently something that cannot be realized in many spheres of creation and
life. How do you reach it?
-
To work and to do the things you truly desire to do, is very hard, but if you are
ready to try, it might possibly succeed. I do not put up with force, I work
only the things I like, in which I believe. I do not have prototypes, I do not
use only special palette paints, special preparations, special brushes (one of
the colleagues with Academy once stopped and exaltedly said "original Van
Dyke brown", I asked him to show me that in the painting, and then I
showed him the tube of our "home made" palette paint. He did not
believe!). I buy material from many different producers and it is not important
to me whether they are highly ranked or not, since everything is in my fingers
and my head. I buy preparations mostly in bookstores, sometimes I make them
myself, but I do not make a fuss about it. It does not deal with any kind of
philosophy, or paints, preparations but it deals with courage itself. For a
good painting it is necessary to have something more than courage alone. It is
condensed and unconscious - I am conscious when I start my painting and when I
sign it, everything in-between is total power of the painting over me. The
process of creation is completely irrational; sometimes I create painting from
a single drawing, sometimes only with fingers and colours, but I do not decide
upon that consciously.
Why
a horse?
-
They intrude somehow themselves, not with their beauty, it is possibly the last
that forced me to paint them, but with their looks in the eyes, carried for
centuries, as if they were collected in their glance. They simply haunt me. In
their first phase, as a little girl, I painted horses too, although rarely, I
draw and paint people most of all, and now, I do only horses. I will wait for
some time - the moment when I will recognize in people the people again, if
they awake in them. Horses are "on their own", nobody possesses them,
and people are very wrong, because horses are one un-ceased net of our
existence. People are not consequent, free, courageous, while horses are all
these things. I will soon get very my "own horse" , but no one will
posses anyone in that situation. I am looking forward to its coming, our
"talks" and sugar cubes with which we make them happy. It will come
soon, but for now it is a secret, although it will be his name -
"Secret".
۞
▪ INTERVJU: MAGIJSKI SVET
ILI NEOPHODNA KOCKA ŠEĆERA (Ružica Z.N.
Stojković, "Danas"
2003.)
Ko je Suzana zapravo, bio je
mogući početak?
- Od najranijih dana kojih se sećam, radila sam
samo ono što osećam, nepristajući da činim nešto što ne volim. Slikanje je ono
što me je ispunjavalo, što sam volela, jer sam sa četiri godine počela da crtam,
i ubrzo je nastao moj prvi hat u prirodnoj veličini, na zidu moje sobe. On je i
danas tamo, uvek me čeka kad god odem u svoju rodnu kuću u Vranju, lep, čaroban,
pravi, jer živi sve vreme. Petnaest godina kasnije prestala sam da
slikam.
Na čuđenje "zašto?",
odlučno odgovara, "to je previše lično pitanje". Na ponovljeno pitanje,
pomirljivije odgovara da nikada nije slikala da bi slikala, "to je kod mene
sasvim spontano, ja nikad ne znam kad ću slikati, prosto ne silim sebe -
bežeći od "ličnog". Tek na insinuaciju da je umetnost možda pre svega lična,
Suzana Stojanović pristaje. "Prestala sam spontano, kao što spontano i
slikam, splet okolnosti je bio takav da sam osećala kako "moram" da prestanem,
time sam štitila i svoje slikanje i sebe. Patila sam, doduše, kao i slike koje
su bile u meni, ali kad se sad vratim trinaest godina unazad, mislim da je baš
tako i moralo da bude. Bio je to period sazrevanja, novih percepcija. Ono što
sad vidim tada nisam mogla da vidim, možda, nisam ni
umela".
Je li to bilo kreativno
ćutanje, skupljanje i "pohranjivanje na sigurnom"
percepcija?
-
Znala sam da će se "to" jednog dana desiti ponovo, zato sam ćutala,
skupljala, čuvala, mada je povratak slikarstvu mogao da se desi i za trideset
godina, ili u neki sasvim neodređeni period. Ali, sve boje sam čuvala, kao i
nekoliko nedovršenih slika.
Period ćutanja prestaje
nakon trinaest godina, i počinje da "kulja" sačuvana strast devetnaestogodišnje
devojke, vi kao mlada žena počinjete "ponovo". Da li se nešto posebno
desilo?
-
Kompleksno je, i to moje ćutanje i novi početak. I jedno i drugo je krenulo
iznutra, iz mene, ništa me iz spoljnog sveta nije motivisalo, sve je bilo samo u
meni. Pokreće me ljubav, vera da na ovom svetu postoji nešto uzvišenije, nešto
"sasvim lično". Nisam krenula u slikanje zbog slave ili novca. Slikam jer je
meni lepo, jer volim da slikam, to ne mogu da objašnjavam, to je moj svet.
Uopšte ne znam kako nastaje tren ulaženja u sliku, u taj lepi svet. Doduše, dok
razmišljam, kad radim crtež, toga se i "prisetim", ali onog trena kad se
dohvatim boje, sve prestaje i boja me potpuno obuzme i
nosi.
Vaše slike pripadaju
moderni, visokom realizmu ili hiperrealizmu. Velike su rasprave i veoma
podeljena mišljenja o tim "pravcima"?
- Moje mišljenje o bilo kojoj vrsti
realizma, ma kako ga stepenovali, nije detaljisanje, recimo portreta konja ili
čoveka. Važno mi je da predstavim realni prostor, realno biće, realno doba dana,
to je za mene realizam, svi valeri, gameni, senke, svetla, realnost u bogatstvu
beskrajne igre svetlosti. To je uvek vezano za moje raspoloženje, tren u kome ja
nešto vidim i kako to sve izgleda "u mojoj glavi". Dok slikam ne pridržavam se
nekih principa, slikam kako osećam. Slikanje je sloboda. Ljudi to osećaju, slika
je čovek, slika je ljubav, slika je slikareva duša. Slika je nešto više od
slike, to nije "predmet" koji se posmatra. Ako slika nije "živa" ljudi to osete,
ne znam ni sama kako, ali slika je više od slike, ona je život i
sloboda.
Sloboda kao univerzalni
postulat humanosti je visoki i težak cilj, često neostvarljiv u mnogim oblastima
stvaralaštva i života. Kako je vi dohvatate?
- Raditi samo ono što istinski želite, jeste
teško ali ako ste spremni da probate, možda i uspe. Ja ne trpim prisilu, radim
uvek ono što želim, u šta verujem. Nemam uzore, ne koristim specijalne boje
(kolega sa Akademijom je jednom zapanjeno stao i rekao ushićeno "original Van
Dajkova braon", ja sam ga zamolila da mi je pokaže na slici, a potom mu pokazala
tubu "naše" boje. Nije verovao!), posebne preparature, posebne četke...
Materijal kupujem od različitih proizvođača, nije mi važno jesu li
visokomarkirani, jer je sve u mojim prstima i glavi. Preparature najčešće
kupujem u knjižarama, nekad sama uradim, ali ne "filozofiram" na te teme. Tu se
ne radi o filozofiji, ni o bojama, preparaturama, reč je o hrabrosti. Za dobru
sliku potrebno je i više od hrabrosti. To je kondezovano nesvesno - svesna sam
samo kad počnem sliku i kad stavim potpis, sve između je potpuna vlast slike
nada mnon. Proces stvaranja je potpuno iracionalan, nekad sliku stvaram iz
crteža, nekada samo prstima i bojom, ali, o tome ne odlučujem
svesno.
Sloboda, hrabrost, vera
u sebe, da li ste nekada posumnjali, zastali pred
kritikom?
-
Slikam zbog sebe, i da, hrabra sam, ne razmišljam ni o čemu što se dešavalo
od 2001. do 2003. godine kada je i nastao ovaj ciklus "Magijski svet hatova",
niti sam šta očekivala. Radila sam jer sam morala, i mislim da svako ko slika
zbog drugih, da bi postao slavan, neće
uspeti.
Zašto
konj?
- Oni se nameću, ne lepotom,
to je možda poslednje što me je nagnalo da ih slikam, pre je to njihov pogled,
ono što vekovima nose, kao da je nakupljeno u njihovom pogledu. Prosto me
proganjaju. U svojoj prvoj fazi, kao devojčurak, slikala sam i konje, mada ređe,
pre svega ljude, a sada samo konje. Čekam neko vreme kad ću u ljudima
prepoznavati ponovo ljude, ako se oni u njima probude. Konji su "svoji", njih
niko ne poseduje, i ljudi su tu u strašnoj zabludi, jer konji su neprekinuta
mreža naših postojanja. Ljudi nisu dosledni, slobodni, hrabri, dok konji to
jesu. Ja ću uskoro dobiti "svoga" konja, ali, niti će on mene ni ja njega
posedovati. Radujem se njegovom dolasku, našim "pričama", i kockama šećera
kojima ih usrećujemo. To će se desiti uskoro, ali je zasad tajna, mada će se
možda tako i zvati - Tajna.
