Catalogue Essay by Milica Todorović

 GLOBAL AND DYNAMIC WORLD OF TODAY

The global and dynamic world of today, facilitated and emphasized by communicative ease, has changed the way of life for many artists who have replaced the former customary static existence with pronounced mobility. Acquiring new knowledge, establishing contacts, exchanging ideas and experiences with colleagues and audiences from various environments are valuable and fruitful aspects of the artist’s relocation and active “travel.”

The artistic duo Damon Kowarsky and Hyunju Kim belong to the group of authors who have gladly embraced the challenges of mobility. While domiciled in Australia, their professional creative and exhibition activities have been conducted worldwide: from the United Kingdom, Greece, the USA, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Oman, Egypt, China, to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, France, and the Balkans, namely Montenegro and Serbia (Studenica, Sićevo, Niš). From the perspective of their creativity, this flexible existential concept is highly inspirational and positively effective.

At the core of Damon Kowarsky’s opus is the visualization of personal impressions of a physically defined living environment, which for him is a transient place of temporary residence and acquaintance. Through the specificity of his practice and poetics, he creates a visual diary, a unique personal image of the world in which geographical landscapes and cities he has visited and with which he has established an empathetic or intuitive connection are accentuated. The artist’s focus is directed towards urban architecture, both extraordinary and mundane buildings in a natural environment, or towards the immediate landscape. Kowarsky changes vistas, finds specific viewpoints, carefully “captures” the scene, but in his artistic interpretation, he concentrates on an intimate experience that is contemplative, with a sense of harmony and balance. Kowarsky’s artistic elaboration fundamentally rests on meticulous and precise drawing, precise treatment of form whether it is of natural or architectural origin, skillful framing, clearly defined perspective, and fine, almost pastel soft gradation of tones, mainly of two colors, green and gray. With these means and thanks to his great personal artistic skill, Kowarsky transforms the real environment into a quiet, mysterious, lyrically intoned artistic scene that serves as a sanctuary from the noisy and chaotic world of today.

Hyunju Kim, originally from South Korea where she was also educated, bases her creativity on the codes of the so-called collective cultural memory. The artist re-contextualizes historical facts of different origins that are sourced in the mythological, spiritual, or folkloric backgrounds and creates new shelves to display them on. An important part of her opus includes animalistic motifs and ornaments of a geometric or floral type. By combining these elements, the artist creates situations of projected and imagined reality so that her works assume magical or surreal characterization. Hyunju Kim uses the potential of the artistic heritage of the Asian region as a reference field for her own work, primarily in a formal stylistic sense. Meticulously precise drawing, neutral background, absence of spatial depth, i.e. emphasized two-dimensionality, ornamentation of surfaces, and the application of various colors are important components of her artistic expression by which she creates imaginary scenes with enigmatic messages.

Damon Kowarsky and Hyunju Kim are artists whose life paths are intertwined but who, according to their own sensibilities, nurture individual artistic poetics and different artistic expressions. What they have in common is cultivated artistry, exceptional dedication to the creative act, and impeccable mastery of the demanding graphic technique of etching-aquatint in which all the works represented at the exhibition in Valjevo were created.

Milica Todorović, Art Historian

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