Omer Alic

1972 born in Bosanska Krupa, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Educated from Academy of Fine Art Sarajevo

Painter’s world of a young artist Omer Alic even in the very first contact addresses us with some kind of energetic impact, or more prescisely, by radiating a strong panter’s gesture that draws the viewer directly to the field of image-happening. This gesture is characterised with strong painter’s temper that plays its artistic role so to say instantly, by direct, precise and wide stroke that stays exactly on the spot where brush and surface met for the first time, not demanding any correction or intervention afterwards. Every stroke in its immediateness functions, of course, in the relations-array of the whole, that is: gauns its artistic and expressive quality in the organic connection alone, in mediating to other strokes and elements of the painting, in interacting with the knitting of other painting’s moments (lines, surfaces, traces of colour) – but is identified by its very brave directness and instant-ness of the strokes that points to the lively, almost affective nature of the painter. Obvious dynamics – and even tension that flotes in the paintings of Omer Alic almost certainly comes from an inner mental dynamics or from the painting-precending inner sensibilitu that goes through its elaboration and strong visualisation in his artistic world.
At least two recognisable elements co-operate in shaping Alic’s artistic hand-writing: simplicity, reduction and wide swing of the strokes that skilfully ”catches” the essence of the shown form by its lapidary-like manner, and as second, a special, uninhibited ”colourism” that seems to represent Alic’s artistic credo. The mentioned siplicity and reduction of the wide stroke basically has a function of dynamic structuring of the painting, but at the same time has a value of impliicit ”graphism” that deliberately stays within the limits of the figural/thematic contents sketch. Actually, this reduction and elementarism of the stroke (by which the object contents of the painting is only marked in the form of indication) – and has no primary presentation purpose nor could it be thought of as a strict drawing procedure that would be related to fixating of som object from for itself. Object or topic contents (paintings of a nude, faces og landscape scenes) are only the frame or pretext for the painter to get himself into the in-depth dramatisation of the ”topic”, in so to say, psychological or experiential valleurs in which the immediate literal-ness of the thematic cause disappears or becomes secondary, and the inner drama of its own kind comes to front and is being rendered into a scene in the painting. In Alic’s case, ”painter’s” means ”colouristic”. That means: Artistic event is the happening of colour as a basic means of expression, that is, its material qualities and psychological-associative potentials. That is why it culd be said that colour in Alic’s work is not only the means but the purpose. Alic simply loves colour; he releases it to almost uncontrollably act in its own constitutional and expressive potesioals. So even if in his works th topic-related contents could be recognised, this contents still does not have privileged position when opposed to the happening of colour alone, that by itself structures both the topic and its interpretation, but also its own, autonomaous world of colouerd matter that is being deposited in complex structures and planes both in widthand depth. The said colourism is strong, direct and very dense. Alic operates with elementary, pure values of colours that, in full sharpness interfere in broad spectrum. Starting from dull, cold chromatic virtues of dark-brown, blue and green to explosive, hot outbursts of red, yellow and orange. The way chromatic spectrum is being treated (from the choice of coloured values to different technical procedures that Alic is trying out, such as oil, watercolour, gwash) is fairly diverse, pointing to a kind of continous search, or, more accurately, to his conscious exploratory curiosity when it comes to different technical, theme-related and expressional possibilities. He, in a way, is putting his painter’s sensitivity into different (sometimes even opposing) artistic situations and taskes, but still never deviating from his basic and artistic feeling. His works vary the basic need for the painting to be a king of an inner ”drama text” said by means of an painter’s visual dramatisation. Researchers’ curiosity – in which Alic is ready to adequately enter some kind of artistic quotation (either in quoting experiences from his academic education or in som gesture-made allusion to the artistic philosophy of expressionism, or in his own trying of pointillist strategy in works that could be thematically classified as landscapes), - this curiosity (that has still not canonically tied to equality of means and expressions) could be recognised in different theme-related and technical levels. Thus, in the cycle that is really a series of painting of a nud it is a specific kind of studying this genre, however with the main point that isn’t rendered by stressing the figure as such, not a pure study of figure, as much as it is a hidden or direct dramatising of the body. It is being seen in situating the body in space, in its cramp or tension, both as in expressive, dense colouric gesture and articulation of the inner atmosphere and tension that the body is in. The other cycle – that couls thematically be named: faces – done in the technique of water colours (that is in its nature softer and couloristically mor reduced, at some spots even nearing monochromatic solutions) – carries in itself some of the expressionist logic, and also in the manner of reduced, pure, ad hoc strokes reaches convincing expressive effect the ”semantic contents” of which is being merged into the resultant of the whole of the series. Effect of dramatisationan energetic dynamics is increased, besides that, by scattered Alic’s interventions on the surface of the painting – by which the tame neutrality of pure expression wants to be deserted and, opposed to that, the vibrant restlessness of the structure itself and its receptive assimilation emphasised. The equal expressive restlessness could be found in the copies of Alic’s stylisation of landscapes made in oil: here also the tense strength of Alic’s artistic experience and its artistic materialisation is confirmed. Explosive colourism and the painter’s strong propensity towards colour with all its potentials come to front here. Here Alic’s works with concentrated raw array of paints, with elementary density of entire colouristic spectrum, bringing to maximum the use of paste-like virtues of paint-mass that he deposits directly from the tube. By that, besides the high tension that is created by concentrantions of basic colours and their optical synthesis, he is forming a very tactile, almost relief-like texture of the surface – pointing to physical and sensory nature of artists’ world ant its fluent his artistic world looks like a started challenging journey that is not being restrained to walking on the paths that are not defined without residue and not determined in advance, but rather lead to always movable and new boundaries, not to stay within those limits but for them to be crossed over.

Sulejman Bosto PhD