"Macedonia - The Bright Land"

"Macedonia – The Reminiscence of the Land"

Author: Gligor Chemerski

From the very first sketches emerged the “theme” and the title of this “diptych”, although there are two opposite walls “Macedonia - The Bright Land” (7.5m x 4m) and “Macedonia – The Reminiscence of the Land” (4.5m x 4m). The title is, of course, difficult for a school writing assignment, but not for painting. Regardless of the title of the painting, there is light and colour. For the painter, it still brings together general space and universal time, a hidden force which highly increases the possibilities of art. Then, it turns out that I could not do anything else, but to focus the light beam from the ground with sharp sights and views, notes and striking memories of the eye, images of abundant colours and emotions, equally close to reality and dream since they truly are a dream and reality. The fantasy is perhaps the real ring through which the reality transcends into art.

What is old-fashioned and "modern" in my mosaics? This question is a pure question of style. Once a work of art is created, it belongs to the universal time, to the present in which the works are peers. They are equal according to their strength and suggestiveness. The one that are not equal do not belong to that time or to that space.

I spent my barefoot childhood in Kavadarci, near the ancient city Stobi. In summer, I went with the older friends near the mouth of the river Crna Reka, I was taught to swim and catch fish by hand amid the round stones. There were goats grazing on the steep, the sun glittered through the broken marble columns and statues, tiny pieces of stone arranged in pictures. It is almost forty-five years after my first independent exhibition in Belgrade and Skopje, very important persons for the painting greeted my return as return to Arcadia. In European language, this means return to the pure civilization youth. Nowadays, I hear Macedonia is "antiquated" and thus reaches out for the forbidden fruit. Of course, Macedonia is not Arcadia, but it is no less antiquity, nor pre-antiquity. In the great Mediterranean civilization core, it shared and still shares the spiritual blood network, the Millennium systole and diastole. Mesopotamia and Egypt are quite close to us.

In my mosaics, and particularly in "Macedonia – The Reminiscence of the Land", there are quotations, paraphrases or pre-stylization of almost contemporary, medieval, ancient, pre-ancient, neolith and paleolith motifs. These are often small stone or ceramic motifs, precious and subtle works of the human hand and spirit recomposed and placed in new relations, settled on a newer pictorial and light ground, and I hope they create poetics of the new era. Painting, once long ago was raised very high, now it can only be improved.

At the promotion, organized by the President in July 2009, I heard from people of culture and media beautiful words which make my own words redundant, that "the mosaics "The Bright Land" and "The Reminiscence of the Land" bring back joy, bring back hope; that they are like a tale and are fascinating...", these are too powerful words despite the beautiful feeling when you hear such words. Once again I will refer to the light and its curative effect. If it shines in a simple way, the painter can safely return to his atelier and start a new picture.

Gligor Chemerski

Gligor Chemerski is a renowned Macedonian artist – painter, graphic designer, creator of mosaics, with an extraordinary productive work behind. Born in Kavadarci in 1940, he completed graduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Arts in Belgrade in 1965. After receiving the French Government’s scholarship he spent one year of studies in Paris (1969-70). Since then he has often worked and exhibited in Paris, being also engaged by the Parisian Galerie du Fleuve. Chemerski realized study visits in Egypt, Greece, Italy, Holland, Sweden, Germany and USA. Since 1962, individually or together with other painters, he exhibited in Skopje, Belgrade, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Dubrovnik, Porec, Paris, Alexandria, Istanbul, Sofia, Prague, Graz, Bucharest, Moscow, Madrid, Copenhagen, Mexico City, New York, Hague, Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow, New Delhi, Barcelona, Wilmington, North Carolina, Fayetteville, and other places. He is the author of several grand monuments in Skopje, Vrutok, Kavadarci and Kochani. The Monument of Liberty in Kochani includes mosaics of 320m2. For his artistic work Chemerski has been awarded with numerous national and international recognitions and awards.

From the process of creation of the mosaics: