Art & Literature

LANDSCAPES – TRANSPARENCY art project with Angelina Popovska

Angelina Popovska was born in Romania, 1967. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje, 1986. Since 1993 she has been working as an icon conservator at the NI National Conservation Center in Skopje. Her professional education continues with a master’s degree in Belgrade, Serbia (2007). She receives her Ph.D. at the Institute of National History in Skopje, 2012.

Research on the material composition and the traditional icon painting system and experiences on technology and conservation materials help create her original painting technique. The painting expression remains oriented towards figurative painting and bioforms.

In the beginning, I was especially interested in the subtle color combinations and the phenomenon of light, which drew me into the Impressionist expression. Watercolor, in particular, as a technique, fascinated me with its transparent overlays, random effects, and details that, although inadvertently created, produced sensations that evoked joy and excitement equal to a precious discovery. Artistic research through work has led me from minimalism, Optical art, Conceptualism to Ambient art.
But the real excitement and joy remain in the small sequences of sensations revealed when playing with materials. The longer such “images” linger in the memory (albeit as flashing signals), the more the impulse for joy was secreted by their stimulus. Some call this art, but for artists, it’s a challenge!

Everyday communications get increasingly digital today. What impact do these technologies have on contemporary art? What are the aesthetics and policies of using advanced technologies such as television, computers, and the Internet in creating art?

These strategic psychological deceptions and the phenomenon of so-called influencers, using social networks to promote new tools for users in technology and new media in contemporary art, have reduced the value of direct observation. Observation of things, self-awareness of the consumer, promotes the need for strong-sensory catalysts in artistic expression.

I needed a new way of transmitting, that is, my approach in transferring what I see from the inside out! Re-entry into the very nature of things put the focus on materials, technique, technology. Their mechanical properties, by themselves, or in a physicochemical reaction create are emitting signals and effects in mutual interaction or under the influence of each other.

The adhesive power of transparent resins produces sensational stimuli, wherein the composition of the materials determines their participation, quantity, ratio. The author is the catalyst, turning point, the conductor of the event – and he sets the duration of the process resulting from the chemical reactions in the role of a witness, observer, and even – an audience!

Transparency, illumination, the essence of structures. A trace of something already created or work that arises from itself? Do the materials determine the end, or maybe the beginning of the creation?

Despite the general subtle digitalisation, the phenomenon of natural laws and the natural order of things is still an unopened vault fascinating to man! Each so-called ready-made product in combination with another can create a new reality, stable enough to survive as it is or changes, becoming a New original.

A piece from the exibition (2018)