My Bloody Underground is the latest series of paintings by Sydney-based artist Goran Tomic exhibiting during this year’s Sydney Fringe Festival at the Seymour Centre.
MegaphoneOZ caught up with him for a brief conversation.
Q: The last time we spoke you were in the middle of Video Art and Installation projects, so why are you showing paintings for the Fringe?
A: I wanted to do something different. I wanted to get my hands dirty, to do the opposite of what I usually do. These paintings are so disciplined and controlled in their execution which is totally out of character to the way I usually work which is manic, unpredictable and confronting.
Q: They look tribal, almost spiritually energised.
A: Yeah, there’s a lot of energy and power in them, they’re like mazes or labyrinths. A friend thought they looked like electrical circuits. Some think they look Egyptian; they could be African or Aztec depending on where you come from.
Q: So what made you paint these?
A: I felt swamped and over-saturated by all the familiar images that exist around us, whether it’s 9/11, a chair, Elvis, an image of a horse or Kevin Rudd. So I wanted to create unfamiliar images to go along with the unfamiliar emotions I’ve been processing in the last year and a bit. There’s comfort and safety with the known and familiar which is cool, but I wanted to do something Alien!
Q: The paintings look stencilled and precise. How did you go about it?
A: They do look stencilled from a distance, but they are actually all hand-painted freehand, and the symmetry is by eye, so there are discrepancies. It’s not mirror perfect, and that’s kind of how I like it – it makes it warmer and more human, less computerised and robotic. The fact that it’s all painted by hand was a major journey of patience and discipline. You’ve heard of ‘primal scream therapy’ well this was ‘primal line therapy’.
Q: What’s the concept behind these works?
A: It was just about delving into the collective unconscious and portraying the interconnecting and intercommunicating circuit of life, linking all forms of creation through the line. Almost occult, but more about how we are all joined together, whether it’s through one love, one blood or one line.
My Bloody Underground is on exhibition from September 7 at the Seymour Centre Foyer and runs until September 28 as part of the Sydney Fringe Festival.
