About me

"Many of the facilities that we carry in ourselves must be appreciated as the gifts of our ancestors, which they left in us as the heritage of their deeds and destinies"

Radosav Cirkovic - Cirke, began his artistic path long time ago, ever since he was twelve, when he got a terrific urge to create. His first painting canvas was not saved, it disappeared, but the smell of fresh paint color and turpentine will always remain present in his being. Painting is a gift that needs to be fostered and developed. One who meets the real teacher is happy, the teacher who will direct and enhance the artistic spirit of the newlyweds, and so encouraged steps into the infinite world of art.

During the High School education, Radosav came in contact with the professor Svetislav Mladenovic who recognized the tendency towards drawing and painting in him. A couple of drawings were preserved from that period which clearly shows the tendency towards surreal artistic expression. Along with painting, love towards music and sport were developed, which came in the first plan and it lasted until 1990. In the following 1991, he began everyday painting work, and two years later, in 1993, he became a member of the Association of Painting Artists of Kragujevac - LUK. Since 1995 he has been active in secretarial jobs of LUK.

He is also a member of the painting and graphic section of ULUPUDS. He is the creator of the art group "Sorab". He was awarded "Freedom of creation - Dragutin Ančić" at the meetings of painters in Zrenjanin in 2002 and 2009 and praised for drawing on the Spring Exhibition of drawings of LUK in 2008.

Exhibitions

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2008 - Gallery of the National Library of Vuk Karadzić Kragujevac - cycle "Axes" - drawings
• 2010 - Center for Grocka Culture - cycle "Svarga" - oil on canvas
  

IMPORTANT COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS

• Annual Exhibition of LUK, Kragujevac (1993 1994, 1999, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009)
• First Triennial Kragujevac Art, Gallery of the National Museum of Kragujevac (2003)
• Art exhibition of May, Belgrade (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997)
• Meetings of painters of Zrenjanin (2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009)
• Spring exhibition of drawings LUK, Kragujevac (2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010)
• Exhibition of awarded works of LUK from 2005 to 2008 - Gallery of the National Library of Kragujevac.
• Open communication, the second exhibition of small format - Rančić's House, Center for Grocka Culture (2009)
• Art Exhibition of November ULU Vladislav Maržik - Kraljevo (2009)
• Exhibition of new members of ULUPUDS, SULUJ gallery, Belgrade (2010)
• Exhibition of miniatures "Grain", Zrenjanin (2010)
• II Balaton Saloon- International Fine Arts Biennale, Hungary 2010
• "INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 2010 Surrealism Now" on line Coimbra, Portugal

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2009 Art Group Sorab - Gallery of the National Library of Vuk Karadzić Kragujevac
• 2010 Art Group Sorab - Center for Grocka Culture - Rančić's House

Philosophy of life expressed through art

In collusion with the ancestors, old Slavic deities, forces of good and evil, in a constant quest for eternal truths, Radosav Cirkovic builds his painting manuscript. Encouraged and led by the spirit of Milić of Mačva, whose painting poetry was left, but not a common attachment to the roots, he chooses an ax for the frame of his foundation in life as well as art. Tendency towards mystic, cultivation of primordial, belief in the legality of an uninterrupted natural flow are sources of his daily thoughts and studies, and art is just a way to visualize his ideas and conclusions about it. Just like the human mind cannot reach all the secrets of the world, Cirkovic's ideas also remain incomplete. In the concatenation of shadows and moves, contours of Saint Vitus can only be discerned. In the way that this deity represents a completeness of the Universe, and more countless details, and they all came from the same Slavic culture, in the drawings of Radosav Cirkovic, it is above and connects this holy being. Amorphous figures interlace with fish, ember of birds and cosmic egg leave the dilemma of pre-beginning unsolved. Oroboros devours its own tail, spreading the idea of eternal life cycle and self-renewal of matter, indestructible and everlasting.

With a clear, hard line, which defines the shape of an ax, Cirkovic divides the world of physical, phenomenal from the surrounding area. Whiteness, as a light and symbol of spirituality on one hand, and fulfillment - life - matter on the other hand. By nice shading with precise hand, the artist emphasizes the sharpness of blade and flash of metal. The power of suggestive is achieved by plastic modeling.

He protects and fights, feeds and wins with an ax. The power of the world is concentrated in it, it is the leader of deity. Cirkovic has weaved his whole poetry from this symbol. Occupied by the desire to transfuse the story of ancestors into art, supported by the literature, he started an adventure. What is since time immemorial physically present such as an ax, spoke with firmly grounded, tangible recognizable reality in his paintings. Heaven and creatures from legends, products of imagination and spirit, somewhere between, are of the associative and abstract. Relations between the two worlds, Cirkovic has followed by drawing, fluid shadows and muted contrasts within the form, the absence and presence on global image. Not only was he playing while intervening the forms into the unique art story, but also boldly embarked on a communication with matter and light, as we were previously convinced of his craft skill by clear lines and pure contours. Instead of being a basis, a starting point, drawings in his case, he gave strength and wholeness of one serious contemplative picture.

Maja Stankovic, historian of art - art critic