Velimir Ilišević

Velimir Ilišević often develops a pictorial idea in series.

TEXT / Cornelia Kolb-Wieczorek

Velimir Ilišević’s painting is essentially characterised by impressions of nature, by the perception of the landscape and its atmosphere, by changing moods of light, which mostly produce vivid, bright and sometimes dark, dense images. In addition to memories of landscapes, encounters with people and experiences in his old homeland of Yugoslavia – Ilišević has lived in Switzerland since 1989 – produce pictorial reflections that allow the past to radiate into the present. In this way, his vivid and expressive painting shows both landscapes of nature and landscapes of the soul. Emerging from individual memories and experiences of personal as well as general contemporary history, the works are nevertheless so general in their emblematic motifs that they allow the viewer to experience them in a completely free and personal way.

Ilišević’s picture titles occasionally point in a certain direction, but they tend to remain more of a literary footnote than a clear interpretative aid. The real context and the clear recognition of what is depicted, iconographic aspects, initially play a secondary role, as the artist is first and foremost concerned with the medium, that is, with painting itself. The ductus and dynamics of the application of paint, composition and proportion, the conquest of the empty, white canvas – this is what primarily moves the passionate painter. Making the artistic appropriation of the picture surface visible as a process, underlined by the often free-form edge of the picture, is just as important as the question regarding the relationship between the figure and the background, which are closely interwoven through a uniform stroke and a certain openness of form.

An idea is worked on through painting until it becomes a picture. Always a challenge that opens up unexpected paths ...

“Gefrierpunkt” (or freezing point) is the title of the painting shown here, which the artist offers us as a guide for the visual walk through his visual worlds – a title that seems to have an emotional background. The work is part of the series “Flussentlang” (along the river), in which the artist places the Rhine at the centre of his images. The river on which he drifted in an inflatable boat in the summer, while the landscape, boats, bridges and riverbank buildings passed by at the flowing speed of the water, is also a symbol of the passing of time here.

Velimir Ilišević usually works for a longer time on one theme, which he develops in a continuous series. It is not about documentation, but about imagination. It is not what is actually seen that is of interest, but the effect it has had: images full of power and dynamics, full of atmosphere and lively tension, floating motifs in sometimes strong, sometimes subtle colours, lured out of obscurity and lifted into daylight.