Josip Ivanović is an artist who listens to the rhythm of time thus becoming a pure "Homo Urbans", with whom an exceptional artistic transformation of the initial motif takes place. The initial motif of the car prompted him to play with desire, to express his painterly sensibility and ambition in a colorful display in which he certainly succeeded.
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What?! From car to chaos?!
Where to begin when everything has already been said about this artist with a wide range of artistic practices? As a friend and critic, I have been following the work and artistic evolution of Josip Ivanović throughout his long career and I dare say that I can describe his entire creative output from 1990 to this day, from cramped creative space and nearly miniature works in different techniques to these large formats that draw attention not only with their size but also their powerful expression, colours and themes.
Looking back, Josip Ivanović is marking a big anniversary of his first exhibition in Dubrovnik.
Josip Ivanović is always consistent in his exceptional artistic research in line with his firmly held convictions. The background that Josip Ivanović treats superficially is filled with details indicating with their playfulness and colour that his painting is like life – subject to constant change. In his large paintings, the artist establishes a dialogue with the viewers through artistic-colourist poetics that is in consonance with the time we live in, but at the same time his genuine expression (Seifried, 2000).
Accordingly, in this seemingly small exhibition of large formats, Josip does not offer some illusion of truth, but the true reality of contemporary living. The car, that object of modern human life, is shown without passengers in his works, stripped and without a soul, but still alive. That car of his in its realistic appearance opens up the infinite possibility of freedom. The freedom of artistic expression that this artist lives up to. Josip Ivanović seems to be telling us: Not every beginning has an end or outcome in sight... because with him there is no end – with him there are only and always new beginnings.
In this case, the work surprises us, but it also surprises its creator. The artistic evolution of Josip Ivanović can be observed, but not predicted. With him, expression carries pure harmony of imagination.
Far from the corresponding structures of the painting, the artist leads us into a kind of game of creation, vitality, colourist joy of chaos in this hectic world. Ivanović seems to be trying to impose some other meaning on our world: Joy?!
Josip Ivanović is a painter who listens to the rhythm of time and thus becomes a pure Homo urbans whose initial motif goes through an exceptional artistic transformation. The initial car motif ignited his desire, his artistic sensibility and ambition of colourist expression, in which he was definitely successful. In the end – which is never the end – this art is a form of an imaginary world that inevitably communicates and bridges the reasons and assumptions of existence by collapsing in chaos all boundaries of colourist expression.
Andrija Seifried
Zagreb, 18 October 2023
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On display until August 27th
