Vana Urosevik

LOS CAPRICHOS Y LA GARROTE

During her work as an artist, involving several stylistic phases, Vana Uroševik has continued to develop, determined to explore unremittingly the world of inner chasms, wonders and monsters. She does this wittily and sarcastically, inventively walking on the tightrope over areas in which reality and unreality intertwine. In this strange mixture, in this labyrinth of two worlds, Uroševik divulges fears and bad dreams, turning them, sometimes mockingly, into a lucid game with the enigma of two contrasting situations, transforming threatening dark forces from unexplored depths into a subtle game in which, nevertheless, the joy of life eventually triumphs. Using a novel background, silk, on which, by means of a special technique, she crafts discreet associations of objects, sceneries and figures, Vana Uroševik has set Goya’s original image in silkscreen printing as a negative or positive image, having synthesized the contrast and then added subtle color variations – one step further towards the unity or chain of suddenly discovered coincidences in which the mental eye of the observer recognizes a reality of only seemingly disconnected temporal and spatial coordinates. By focusing their attention, the observer comes to a certain analytical touch, to the manifestation of the same content which is projected and distributed visually and spiritually from unreal to real, and vice versa. It is in this way that a unique artistic code about the relativity of reality is elucidated, while this code simultaneously becomes a ritual scrutiny of the possible transformation of various spatial-temporal forms.

Vana Uroševik’s new project, Capriccios and Garrote, is the result of a careful and multifaceted exploration of contrasting questions related to the notions of guilt, fatal error, and sin. Other questions come to mind immediately: Who deserves to be accused, and who accuses whom? Who has the right to put this horrible device around the neck of the condemned, and who dares to be the judge? Yet other questions remain before us: Is there a role change in the accuser-accused relationship? Do Inquisition trials take place in our subconscious, while the garrote remains in the halls of reality? Does this torture instrument herald the end of trials and accusations, or is it only their beginning? Perhaps, from an artistic point of view, the garrote has some visual beauty, and beauty seduces … and then produces visions, only to lead to resistance and invoke questions such as these: Why? Who? With what purpose? What appears as a threat, as an execution device, becomes a reason to rise in opposition and rebel.

Viktorija Vaseva Dimeska

Translated by Filip Korženski