RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION

DRAGAN MOMCILOVIĆ

The Gallery of Contemporary Fine Arts Niš, on April 25, 2024, is organizing a retrospective exhibition of paintings and drawings by Dragan Momčilović, a native of Niš. With this exhibition of selected works in the field of fine arts, the artist marks 50 years of his artistic work. The exhibition will be officially opened by Goran Stanković, a Serbian writer of poetry, prose, and essays. In addition to the above, he is engaged in editorial work, as a long-time editor in Gradina, then director of the Niš Cultural Center. Since 2002, he has been the editor-in-chief in the same institution. Winner of many awards in the field of literature. Goran Stanković is, first of all, a long-time friend and collaborator of Dragan Momčilović. At the opening, we will have the opportunity to enjoy the performance of several musical numbers by the string quartet from the Leskovac Symphony Orchestra.

Momčilović was born in 1952 in Crna Trava, from where his family moved to Ćičevac, where he finished elementary school, and then enrolled in the five-year Art School “Đorđe Krstić” in Niš. On the recommendation of Professor Dragan Kostić, after graduating from art school, he began working at the then young and promising publishing house “Gradina”, where he established a symbolic and symbolic recognition, and provided visual illustrations for over 1,000 titles. In the late 1970s, he enrolled in the Pedagogical Academy “Kliment Ohridski”, and became a member of ULUPUDS and ULUS. Although he worked on the book equipment, as a technical editor, it was then that the painterly being developed in him, inspired by poetry, literary works, primarily the poems of Branko Miljković. Enraptured by lyricism and spirituality, he creates his own visual language, building it very thoroughly and systematically. His paintings become epitaphs dedicated to deceased writers or dialogues with contemporaries of the painting profession. Series of diverse works followed each other from year to year in countless combinations of paintings, drawings, objects. Entire cycles of thoroughly elaborated works of art were created: Epitaph, Obzorja, Blue Line of Life, Seven Dead Poets, About Branko Miljković, Dialogue with Todor (Stevanović), through Image and Object… In addition to the above, Momčilović has been continuously exploring nature and everything that surrounds him for decades, but above all through his own experience and memory. Carried away by personal philosophical thinking, imaginary landscapes filled with symbols, abstract pasty surfaces, an endless embodiment of the horizon, from which the sun rises and sets as a symbol of his life and spirit, were created.

His palette is recognizable, special, individual, as is his way of painting and combining abstract, symbolic and geometric expression through colored drawing. Momčilović’s versatility in fine and applied art over the past five decades will remain permanently recorded, through a large number of awards and recognitions from many fairs and solo and collective exhibitions of members of ULUS and ULUPUDS. We must especially highlight his personal engagement in creating the culture of the city, and his great merit in forming the Art Colony “Classic” of the Niš Tobacco Factory (Philip Morris), where he worked from 1993 to 2005. Upon retirement, he devoted himself entirely to painting and working in the studio with the same intensity, creating every day surrounded by friends and family. With this retrospective exhibition, he marks 50 years of his artistic work, with works carefully selected from his rich opus of fine art. Despite the changes he went through, he remained consistent with his chosen creative orientation and artistic expression, which is clear and very recognizable. Considering all the phases of his opus, starting from the figurative to the last abstract, he remained consistent with the informel and the associative illusion of the object form with noticeable traces of artistic abstraction. The maturity and experience gained through daily work and engagement are now proven here in front of us with his works. Fragmentation and layering as well as boundless expressive energy fit with the artist’s temperament, which is of the same intensity as at the beginning of his creative journey. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog and an almanac with the painter’s artistic manifesto. Dragan Momčilović still wants to say a lot and permanently record it on the canvas, and we thank him for this from the bottom of our hearts and wish him to continue creating for as long as possible.

The exhibition will run until May 25, 2024.