Walkabout

 Ravnikar Gallery Space, Ljubljana, 2021.

Some scenes entice and engage us at first sight. Whether they are small, seemingly insignificant and apparently invisible, or large and striking subjects, we instantly stop and merge with what we have before our eyes, we slowly withdraw from the visual content that has enticed us and take a step back into the space of our own experience.

The mutually coordinated relationship between the content depicted, the colour and the size of the format is what immediately lures us into Radovan Kunić's work. An everyday object, a motif from nature, a detail we usually overlook, now stands solemnly before us and steals our attention. Conquered by the motif of overgrown, fresh but untrodden grass, we approach and begin to contemplate the painting. We follow the rhythm of the gradual transition from darker and cooler to lighter and airier tones, which the artist combines with warm pinks and light and open greens. The artist has executed each blade of grass with precise and patient strokes, drawing attention to the dynamics of its movement, creating an exciting visual game. The contrast in the size, colour and position of the lines makes us focus on the surface and entertains us as we look at it, while calming the composition through the creation of patterns and their repetition, taking on a meditative character and opening up the sensory space of the painting. By surrendering to the senses, we can easily reject the pictorial elements and the composition of the image, enter an Et(h)ernity and spontaneously open the way through the exhibition Walkabout by artist Radovan Kunić.

The artworks presented in gallery space are two paintings and one installation that includes a combination of over a hundred small formats of oil on wood and video animation, which create a harmonious artistic (outer) and experiential (inner) whole. Realistically depicted objects and scenes from nature represent a part of reality that the artist conveys through impeccable drawing and exceptional knowledge of composition and colour. Using traditional painting technique, he clearly describes what he sees; candles, grass and a sculpture with their recognisable features, and then with an almost imperceptible change of rhythm or contrast of light and shadow, he creates a space in which he connects and balances the opposites, offering us the possibility of free interpretation.           

The sombre tones of the upright and massive columns connected to each other like elephant legs in a mirror are in the painting Memory Guard associated with heaviness and slowness, something that has been accumulating for a long time. This is the memory and the history of the world, but also our personal histories that have accrued. The lighter tones in the background of the columns and another unfinished column provide us with a freshness in anticipation of the time to come and the history we are yet to create. A single burning candle, by the movement of the flame and the constant change of the reflected light, makes it seem as if hundreds are burning. The artist repeats the motif of the burning candle on over a hundred small panels burning in an indeterminate, darkened space. The minimal transitions of light and dark tones refer to the subtle changes that take place in life. Such changes, the nuances of brief events that occur in our inner world, are further emphasised by the video animation, located in a separate room so that we can observe them alone in the glow of the candles. Together with the composition of oil on wood, the video presents the installation by the symbolic title Chamber. All three exhibited works, both individually and as a whole, form a walkabout, a retreat from everyday life into wilderness, into a space where the rules we are used to no longer apply and where we are not confined to a time or place.

Lucija Švob, art historian, 2021.