BREATHING

                                                          Camilo Racana

 

It is during the year 2024 that Sasho Blazes holds two exhibitions ("Diving to the Bottom", Paris and "Lost in reflection", Venice) in which he develops his desire to "Install the lake in my studio".

The works displayed by these two exhibitions belonged to two different categories: large formats in oil on Tarpaulin and quadrangular formats in oil and acrylic on canvas with resin applications. On display, the ensemble created in the audience a feeling of immersion, just as the artist intended.

Towards the end of that same year, 2024, Blazes hatched a series idea.

To achieve this: 

• He modifies the theme of «aquatic», which was the axis of the previous work, by introducing the one of the palm strokes.

• Accentuates the use of the base colors in «Strips». Strips of color on which he introduces, no longer just the forms of branches of the pond but highlights the footprints of the palm.

• Increases the presence of resin, achieving a way of «The call to caress the work».

• Conserves and develops the use of the drawing grid, structural basis of his pictorial work.

• Finally, and not least, he modified the format of the canvas, enlarging it to human size: 1.80 m x 1.50 m.

Create a first work. This painting will be called “Underwater Landscape”.

However, the artist decides to separate this work from a possible future series and change its title; a similar attitude to the modification that he had made before with his own name. Concealment times. 

 

Now, the occult does not need a physical presence to exist, much less to act. The occult maintains its invisible presence and never ceases to manifest itself; it influences through absence.

"Underwater" will take a hidden journey beneath the line of the set of works. This vigil will act by casting its reflection on the visible works. Solar journey during the night. West-east transit. Trace of the oval line of the eyelid.

 

 

1. The corpus of the current exhibition “Dive in me” in Skopje is organized into three types of works: the quadrangles, the works on Tarpaulin, and a metal volume.

The quadrangles were painted with oil, acrylic and resin on canvas. They stand out for their format and for the separation of a black-and-white work from four colour-rich works. Colors that are meaningful to the artist. The fifth work part of a monochrome White Mercury on which are resting long and dense strokes of black. These are the traces whose design reveals the improbable presence of a portrait, its face and torso. This image of the human form is born from White-Mercury, a reflection of the moon, a life-giving liquid poured into the palm of the hand. Its title is "Silver on Shadows."

The way in which the design of a pictorial scheme begins when a «colourless» work orders the other four paintings. Around this axis these four strange chromatic quadrants seem to swirl. In them, the color arises to hide intimate scenes that are shown when the wave of color fails cover the canvas.

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        2. Tarpaulin. Unlike the "quadrangles," the two tarpaulin works were executed on Sasho Blazes's studio floor. Extensive photographic and film documentation illustrates the development of this arduous enhancement.The two works on Tarpaulin, unlike the « quadrangles», « executed » on the floor of the workshop of Sasho Blazes. Extensive photographic and cinematographic documentation illustrates the development of this arduous task.

The titles of these two works are: «Trapped in the nets» and «Unlock me».

Realization. One by one, the tarpaulin is spread out on the floor of the workshop. 

There, begin the preparation of the support and of the first layer. It will end up being three layers. Each of them will have a different treatment. On the white base are spread out the «Strips» on which black will enter. 

Meanwhile, during this journey, the fabric is folded. It is here that must be point out that the quadrangle is not a particular feature of the form of the paintings discussed above. 

The 4, the square is a compositional element in Blazes' work. If in the «quadrangles», the squares are less visible, it is the gaze of the spectator that will complete them, in the Tarpaulin, the squares are the very structure of the pictorial work.

This grid inscribed in the work, by force to be folded, shaken, thrown, it becomes a floating grid that supports the work itself. This hold on the work seems to be the artist’s bondage. The work claims to be trapped in the grid and demands to be released.

It is then when, the artist with the help of a chisel, scratches the surface, lacerates it, maltreats it to open the surface layer, its skin, and discover the white base. « White shadow of light », an emanation of the hidden picture.

These large landscape formats do not prevent me from thinking about Impressionist work, its diluted material, its wide surface, its texture. The configuration of a floating corpse, the lines of the erect hand, aged and laborious, the inhabitants of the lake shore, the fishes of the marsh, the verdin of the stone eternally wet by the small waves. 

 

       3.  This bloody recomposition of nature is held by a Totem. Made of folded and painted metal, it not only celebrates the genital element but also a breach to be bridge.

This is the idol fallen in the depths of the lake, uncovered and raised to earth. Faces are painted on its surface, visible only through the dim light of ‘Underwater’. The sunken one boils its sharp point. Mystery. A piercing mystery.

 

 

It is time for that « Underwater landscape » to appear, magnificent. To see it, to touch its clean surface of intense blue. The shining protagonist, returned from his nocturnal journey, closes the cycle. « Breathing ».

 

Camilo Racana - Paris 2.V.2025