Walk Around the World
Heintz Center, RCTC, Rochester, MN
June 16, 2012
Rochester’s Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association (IMAA) had organized the celebration of World’s Refugee Day at Rochester Community and Technical College on June 16th, 2012. They invited me to join the celebration and bring some of my works. I decided to put on the show five of my recent oil paintings. It was a good chance to present my new painting “The Sister – Mediterranean Sundowns”. The program was good as well as the turnout. The people from IMAA designed a separate poster for my part of the show. Before the opening there was a huge rain – me and my son Pet ar, who was helping me, got wet, but the pictures reminded dry being safely wrapped in the plastic bags.
ARTrageous 2011
Barlow Event Center Show
Rochester MN
Nov. 23 -27, 2011
In
October 2011 I received an invitation for participation in a show at Rochester’s Barlow Event Center. The call had come at right time for me: I had a few new works and I really wanted to show them. The Center has a reputation of organizing musical concerts and this was for the first time they organized a visual arts event (with an intention to continue in the same trend). In the local papers the event was described as one of bringing “some of the area’s finest artists ranging from painters, sculptors, photographers and crafters”. Most of the artists ( some 20 in number) came from Rochester, but there were also artists from Minneapolis and other places. The 26 pictures that I came with were both paintings and digital pieces. Among the new ones were “Moonways”, “The Beasts”, “Nightmare” as well as some older such as “Ship of Fools”, “Brown & Blue”, “Mondrianesque Composition with a Totem” 1 & 2, “Downtown Fortress”, and others. Refreshing for me was the show’s great diversity. I enjoyed the opportunity of seeing some new faces and their works as well as the pleasure of seeing some old friends of mine.
Plein Air in the Zumbro, 2011During this year`s Plain Air in the Zumbro I was visiting my family in Europa and did not participate the event in person. However, I already had a painting covering the given topic (anything about the Zumbro and Zumbrota). It was my oil painting "Joy of Art" with the theme of our before mentioned show at the Covered Bridge" in Zumbrota. Marie of the "Crossings" was glad to accept my work, and it is still in te Gallery.
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Crossings galerija, Zumbrota, MN
25 februar – 26 mart, 2010
made my first contacts with “Crossings” gallery during my previous shows in Zumbrota (Covered Bridge show and Plain Air in the Zumbro). Marie Louise Marvin, the owner, visited the Covered Bridge show, talked to me, and liked my works. Eventually, I submitted my portfolio and we were in touch trough e-mails, Facebook, etc. When, in the summer of 2009, I finished my oil painting titled “Let’s Go and Read Something”, I send its photograph to “Crossings” and, again, they liked it. Soon an offer for a show followed. “Crossings” Gallery has a long tradition of presenting two artists in a single show. This time they wanted to present my works together with those of Mary Solberg from Winnona, WI. I liked the idea. The exhibition was scheduled for February 25th through March 26th 2010, and I had enough time to paint a couple more pictures (“Downtown Fortress – Red and Blue” and “Incredible Daydream with a Painting Box”).On the show
I had eight paintings (“Ship of Fools – A Homage to Hieronymus”, “At the Edge of a Dream”, “Brown and Blue”, ‘Three in One”, “Artists in the Bridge”, “Let’s Go and Read Something”, “Downtown Fortress”, and “Incredible Daydream With a Painting Box”), and seventeen digital works (“Mondrianesque Composition With a Totem # 1”, “Mondrianesque Composition With a Totem #2”, “Tea Table” (big), “The Pan”, “Cup of Tea, Variation #6”, “A Bucolic Fantasmagoria – That Moment”, “Apples”, “Cup of Tea, Variation #4”, “Runner in the Box”, “Sponge Bob Attacks My Window”, “Oak Center, Minnesota”, “Red Angel”, “Tea Table” (small), “White Angel”, ‘Sunny Afternoon”, “Horses”, and “Cosmic Gamble”. The show was successful: the turnout on the opening reception was very good ( I had a great pleasure to see many of my friend, colleagues, teachers, as well as some new faces), the setting was good, the response of the viewers was very positive, there was an article about the show in a local newspapers, and my two works were sold that evening. I finally met Mary Solberg in person and talked to her about her art, commented some of my works, etc.A
t the closing of the show Marie Louise told me it was one of her favorite shows in last year and a half or two and she wished to keep some of my pictures on the show for an extended time. She picked her seven favorite pictures and we agreed to leave them on exhibit for next couple of months.
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Plan Air in the Zumbro
june 2009 
Not long after the show at the Covered Bridge "Crossings" gallery of Zambrota organized an event titled Plain Air in the Zumbro, described as "Paintings that celebrate Zumbrota`s historic Covered Bridge and the Zumbro River region". Artists were invited to spend two weeks (June 15-30, 2009) in the area, and do some open air paintinngs on the given (athough very widely defined) topic. I came up with an idea to paint an event rather than just a landscape or architecture. The event was our previous show at the Coverd Bridge. It was an acrylic painting executed in somewhat surrealist manner. I didn`t get any material rewards, but I had that satisfaction to have a picture unlike any other on the show and also I was glad that people of "Crossings" liked it. "Artists in the Covered Bridge" was on the exibit in "Crossings" gallery for a month or two, and after that (courtesy of "Crossings") the picture was on the show in Zumbrota`s City Hall for next few months.
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The Covered Bridge Show – Zumbrota, MN
May 9, 2009
This was one‐day show and another requirement for my final semester in School of Fine Arts of University of Minnesota. Supervised by our instructor Betsy Hunt my classmates Brenda, Connie, Yuko and myself were exploring possibilities of using alternative spaces for our show. Everybody liked my idea to pick the Covered Bridge in Zumbrota. Unlike my colleagues who exhibited photographs, I decided to show my computer art, digital photograph as well as my paintings. Finally, I’ve got a chance to present my oil painting “Ship of fools”. The show was a real fun for all of us: the weather was fine, the atmosphere was relaxed,we had some important visitors, and we even had time to play soccer a little. 
The exhibition had found its place on the local TV, and there was an article about our show in the Zumbrota’s newspaper. Personally this event was important for me for the fact that I made my first contact with the people from Zumbrota’s “Crossings” gallery. Beside “Ship of Fools” I had other two oil paintings (“Little Jesus” and “Archangel Michael”, acrylics “Brown and Blue” and “Three in One”, then “Bucolic Fantasmagoria” and “The Rock” (computer art), and a digital photograph “What’s in your Mind,Petar?”
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University of Minnesota, Duluth - Rochester Campus
"Facing" April 27 - May 4, 2009
“Facing” was my first individual show, and my best so far. Performing my own exhibition was a requirement for my senior year at UMD and I took it very seriously. Finally, I had an opportunity to do what I really wanted, to decide what and how many works to show and, there were no jurors. My mentor Betsy Hunt suggested me to present my digital works, and I agreed – I had a good concept and enough material to choose from. I designed an attractive poster and a post card, put my portfolios together, wrote an artist statement, got my prints done, and the event announced. My wife Dubravka and sons Gordan and Petar helped me to put the show up, my instructor in drawing and painting Simon Huelsbeck was so kind to prepare an opening speech, and my colleague Yuko Hibino took over the camera to document the opening. The exhibition was a success: the turnout was great, many visitors left comments I was touched with and proud. The reactions were very positive. At the end the UMD staff allowed me to extend the show till the end of the semester.
"Facing" - Author's Statement
The collection of works presented in this exhibition is a product of an introspective process throughout which I have been facing my own self as well as the outside world.My thinking behind this collection of images was inspired by the dualist principle. According to this principle all phenomena are composed and defined by the two often-competing parts. The philosophers and theologians used the principle to explain the world and the nature of things. However, my intention here was not to explain the world or define the phenomena. Rather I used it as the way of s e e i n g things and presenting them.
I used the principle on several different levels and in a variety of ways. For example on the level of my mind the duality appeared to be the conscious part on one side, faced by the other, almost atavistic, nature of "the forgotten knowledge", deeply buried into our sub consciousness on the other side. I like to call it our shamanistic nature. These two natures are not related the way the usual dualities such as the good and bad are related. In my work they rather interact in a positive way - when I put my "Angel of Night" next to the "Angel of Light" they were not intended to simbolize the good and evil respectively. In the contrary - they show the two ways I see the beautiful. This was the dualism applied on the aesthetical level. Other times the principle worked on the formal level: simply putting one picture next to another creates a duality and brings the new quality. I tried that by positioning the two big formats diagonally facing each other with " A Bucolic Fantasmagoria - That Moment" and "The Rock - A Premonition of a Potential Cosmic Protocreation". This formal dualism was emphasized by the fact that the first mentioned picture presented a mythological story of one moment and the other involving an almost philosophical thought dealing with eternity. In the example of "The Digital Return of the Ship of Fools A i B" there was another multiple dualism applied. These two images were a digital attempt to see my oil-painted homage to Hieronymus Bosch in another way.Dualism was achieved by the sheer fact that the two digital images were based on the previous oil painting. The further dualism was created by the duplication of images, as well as posting the two pictures next to each other. There is no need to have other examples of the principle explained. They are left for the viewers to find and possibly give their own explanation. (My self-portrait colage is a good point to start with).
Finally the act of facing is another clear example of the principle applied.
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Rochester Community and Technical College
2009 Student Exhibition
The year 2009 was my final year at the college, and it was a very dinamical one: I took seven claasses at both RCTC and UMD, had to prepare my own exhibition, worked two part time jobs, had family shores ... My exhibitions in this year started with the RCTC show. I knew in advance that the jurors were inclinend towards ceramics and photography, hower, I decided to put the stress on my paintings and computer art ( despite the fact that I had some strong material in black and white photography ). I submitted my "Premonition of a 
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April 2008
University of Minnesota, Duluth - Rochester (Campus)
Exshibiton of Students Works
About at the same time ast the annual shov at the RCTC there was another show at the UMD. At that time I wasn't UMD student yet (I started there in August). but I was allowed to participate as a future student. The show was prevailingly photofraphy and design show (actually I was the only painter there). I submitted four pieces: freshly refused from RCTC exibition Ship of Fools and Litlle Jesus, as well as a detail from Digital Return of Ship of Fools, and Brown & Blue. I remember the show as one of low energy, poor lighting and clumsy settings.
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April 15 - Maj 8. 2008
Student Art Exhibition 2008
My second show, I submitted my big oil painting "Ship of Fools - A Homage to Hieronymus" (which was at that time my best work and high expectations about it), a piece of so called computer Art " A Bucolic Fantasmagoria - That Moment" that was another ambitious piece, as well as a small oil painting titled "Little Jesus". The jury accepted the Fantasmagoria leaving me with mixed feelings. I was proud of the Fantasmagoria, but the Ship not passing through was a major disappointment for me. Hawever, That Moment was a success, as I heard many positive comments from the people who saw it.
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April 10 - Maj 3. 2007
Rochester Communiti and Technical College
2007 Annual Juried Student Exhibition
The was my first exhibition ever. At that time I was a student at RCTC. Among other classes there I had Painting I with Simon Huelsbeck as the instructor. Each student was alowed to turn in up to three works. I submitted two oil paintings that I painted that semester ( AT the Edge of a Dream and Self Portrait ), and a charcoal drawing ( Still Life - Drapery). The jury accpted the first two mentioned. It was quite a success for a beginner.
