Maya Kulenovic is an incredible artist who's paintings hold a strong dark and gloomy mood.I found Maya, whilst searching for artists that are inspired or create Macabre themed artwork. My reasoning for focusing on art and artists is because I feel you can get a lot from an image when searching for inspiration and it is also interesting to see somebody else's vision of what is Macabre, disturbing, sad, scary etc. Something I enjoy the most about Maya Kulenovic's art is that she explores portraiture, faces and architecture in her works and they all hold different moods from each other. Her Imagery can be argued as repetitive also because of the style of painting and theme, yet she features architecture and buildings that you can even recognise in some paintings. The portraits of people and faces in her paintings appear to look almost like memories and flash backs of a person in her mind and you as an observer are interrupting her memory.
Her 2007 Collection is my favourite selection of paintings from her works as the faces painted in these portraits appear, morbid, inhumane and ghost like. The colours used make these people in the paintings look extremely pale, ghostly and also ill. The eyes of all people painted in these portraits are all frowning and extremely dark in contrast, in some images you cannot see the iris at all only a creepy dark black pupil swallowed in with the rest of the black contrast of the eye.
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| 'Icon 2007' By Maya Kulenovic. Google Sourced Image. http://combustus.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/salt-_SALT-2007-28_X36_-Maya-Kulenovic-600.jpg |
Maya Kulenovic - 'Technique'.
http://www.mayakulenovic.com/selection/galleryselected.htm
The biography/information below is sourced from Maya Kulenovic's official website.
"My esthetics and sensibility come from classical art, which I grew up with. My images have a classical feel to them, because this is the way my hand and eye work. But in many regards they are neither classical nor representational. There is an element of realism there of course, but what I see in my images as I paint are not only the figurative elements, rather, it is the relationship of light and shadow, bright and dark areas of the canvas, and an often uneasy balance of these elements as they push each other and struggle over the areas in between. Light is in a conflict with shadow, yet they define each other, together they bring into existance the figurative image underneath, but at the same time they threaten its integrity. I see shadows as both protective and suffocating, and light as redemptive and obliterating. This balance between light, shadow, and the fragile reality in between is what the psychology of these images is built upon; the expressions and particularities of the faces are secondary.
The process of painting is a sort of a struggle that is neither predetermined nor neutral; each is it's own complex battle. The classical element in it is related to the figurative nature of the image, but it is subverted by a subsequent process of erasure, which is in its essence abstract, random. I use thin and transparent layers of paint to define the image - the defining layers are usually in the classical palette - using a wide glazing brush, then I follow up with a layer of destruction, using whatever I get my hands on - rags of different textures, blades, palet knives, hardened brushes, wire brushes,sandpaper, , different solvents. Often the 'destruction' layer has nothing to do with the realism of the image at all, but it is applied randomly and haphazardly, completely ignoring the classical image underneath. Other times I use it to obliterate areas in light, exposing the canvas underneath. Much of the light in the painting comes from the canvas, and I try to use as little paint as I can. Sometimes instead of erasure, I use a randomly applied layer of an illogical or bright colour, the remnants of which can be seen in traces. So, in a way, my process of painting lately has been creating a defined image, then allowing it to be partially destroyed, and then rebuilding again on the remains. I find this dialog between creation and destruction (or control and abandon) strangely comforting and appropriate."
References
http://combustus.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/salt-_SALT-2007-28_X36_-Maya-Kulenovic-600.jpg
http://www.mayakulenovic.com/selection/galleryselected.htm
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