ZORAN ANDRIĆ: GESTURE AND EMOTION
 
An excerpt from the speech of  Pof. dr Katarina Ambrozić at the opening of Zoran Andrić’s exhibition in Belgrade in 1996. (to prepare  Prof. dr Jasna Jovanov 2010.)
 
 
The conversation with Zoran Andrić was the best way for me to fathom his way of  thinking and to realise that he has been able to choose what is good and close to him. Even today if we take a look at one of his paintings we come to the conclusion: gestual stroke – a characteristic of modern art, with vague shapes but still shapes. Everything is possible owing to the limitless freedom which modern art allows, the pure, violent colour which presents the expression of the temperament permeated by a strange emotion, his connection to expressionism. Ekspresionists are neither a school nor a movement. Expressionism is a painter’s personal experience, thus it cannot be considered a school. Everey expressionist is a person for himself or herself. Our Konjović was an expresionist as Nadežda and Lubarda were; those were the painters who painted their own experience and personal excitement, those were the painters who painted their own experience and personal excitement, those werw the painters of the temperament. However, most of them found inspiration in natural elements. If you take a good look at Zoran’s paintings you will come across the motifs which are much alike as compositions but you will never come across the same painting altrough he has been painting one mill on a small river near the town of Valjevo for years but the painting always seems to be a new sensation experienced through his new mood. He managed to find his place in the big artists’ family. If we begin with our Nadežda Petrović but also remember the great artists such as Van Gogh and Matisse we notice that they all had a similar attitude towards an object – not to copy or imitate but feel it and convey the feeling through coloristic vision. There is that famous Van Gog’s sentence that everu sensation can be expressed in two or three colours and generally, deep feelings and great passions can be expressed only in colour.
There have been expressionists ever since but they occasionally express themselves exclusivelu with the distinctions of their time, for instance when it comes to Zoran Andric, who is in incessant search as other expressionists are, it looks as trough Michelangelo’s words: “Art is a jealous sweetheart and she wants the whole man”, one must love it more than anyhing else. One should observe Zoran while he is working, there is nothing else for him in that moment but spatter colours and his being all immersed in the painting. When a man is seized bu creative rapture, particularly an artist and there is nothing but the painter and what is being painted or sculpted, that must be a God’s gift.