Magnificently are real the horses painted by Suzana Stojanovic. Magnificent is not for the fact that, in the paintings painted in realistic and hyperrelastic style one can easily notice the third dimension, but for the warmth that springs out from every painting - from the eyes of those noble four-legged animals. The grandeur in their eyes is the focus of everything.
Suzana`s skills to mark even the most hidden details leads the observers into dilemma whether there is a painting or a photography. Her preoccupation are horses - beautiful, natural and intelligent. Even as a child she had a desire to have her own horses, but all this remained only an imagination and a dream that did not come true. This is the reason now why she makes them alive in the paintings - the paintings that show how big is her love for them. Suzana expresses herself through realism, photorealism and hyperrealism because she thinks that is it the only way to make alive the subject of painter interest on the cardboard or painting canvas.
Many of individual exhibitions has marked Suzana`s return to painting scene. The exhibitions were all around the country: Belgrade (Geca Kon Gallery), Vranje (Public University Gallery), Vladicin Han (Cultural Centre Gallery), Pancevo, Nis. The exhibition in Vranje was visited by between 4 and 5 thousand people. With her exhibitions Suzana gifted her public one magical world of horses, the world of nature and beauty that was forgotten a little, and that was presented in two different techniques: pastel and oil on canvas painting. Her exhibitions have been visited by thousands of people. The book of impressions is full of strong expressions. It is not unusual that people loose their breath. All of them are amazed and simply stoned when standing before her paintings.
Suzana Stojanovic stopped the scenes of her hyperrealistic way of painting in the right moment: in the moment that allows us to see pride, strength, beauty, mildness, defiance and prudence. The world of horses is heavenly part of the mankind. God was merciful and gifted us with this kind of beauty.
Suzana`s paintings are one unique horse psychology encyclopedia. Within the lively frames one rich palette of the moods of slim-legged pets is caught, the things that the biggest experts of horse soul can foresee and also feel but often cannot express that knowledge. Suzana`s painting can do that. As if her horses were speaking about their inner, secret world that gallops by our world of everyday life and forgetness - familiar to all of us, but unclear as a clatter of many horse feet, in the nightfall into blue distance...
"I`ve been caring memories on horses from my earliest childhood. My great grand-father kept horses. I was so little and they were so big. The thing that left one unique and memorable trace is the glance in their eyes and deep look that kept following me all my life. Horses were and have remained for me one great secret... Even then I realized that horse motive would haunt me forever. There has not been a single painting where one could not feel their presence. I saw horses everywhere, in our past, present and future, in fairytales , games, battles, in forgotten wildness... I wanted to paint many paintings with horses but I did not feel enough ready to stand up to that kind of great temptation. Horse was for me something supreme and so hard to be reachable. It is not enough only to transfer its beauty to the painting canvas or cardboard. With the age of 19 I stopped with painting. The period of perception came, life experience period, new knowledge and new studiousness, experiments and wandering. From one day to another, from one year to another, I was feeling more and more strength and energy that was accumulating in me and it was only the matter of the day when that would come out of me...and it happened. After full 13 years of pause my first painting was a horse portrait. I felt that a horse is the only motive through which I could present myself. Horses inflicted not only with their beauty but also with the things that they have been caring deep down in themselves for centuries. All their pride, dignity, intelligence reflect in their eyes. Their looks haunt, remind, disturb and force us to think. When you once bind yourself to their looks it is very hard to separate from that. It follows you everywhere. I like horses, especially Arabians. It is very hard to catch the moment when they want actually to say something. They speak with their moves and looks. Horses are my eternal inspiration: always beautiful, always different and always their own - they bind centuries and civilizations, in their eyes they carry the records of battles, games, loves and fairytales. This is the way the cycle "The Magical World of Horses" began to appear... Thousands of hours of inexhaustible work. I paint in the way I feel, I paint with heart. It is the only way to fell complete. It all happens instinctively or it does not happen at all. Painting is not the matter of learning. You either are born with it or not, it comes out of you or doesn't. I always place my paintings before me. They speak, I don`t. Every painting is one separate story, one single moment of my life and carries in itself those few words we are always missing to describe in complete certain appearance, creature, feeling... Painting is one beautiful, unexplained world, felt differently by each artist and it is very hard to share it with anyone. There I go alone and that is my world, my Empire, my freedom and my wideness..."
Says Suzana Stojanovic, an artist.
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