When I first received the invitation last year, to participate in an art colony in Serbia, I had no idea, what to think of it. In fact, if it hadn't come from a friend, the reputable Serbian painter Snezana Petrovic, I would have most likely completely ignored it... which, as I know now, would have been a big mistake.
It took some time and explanations to sort out the details and for me to understand what it was all about. I learned, that Serbia has a long tradition of these so called art colonies and that they could be anything from a few guys meeting on a village square for a day to a highly professionally organized event like "PIGMALION".
This is a project run by Slovenian entrepreneur Gorazd Cuk, who just built a new home for his colony surrounded by the lavender and other fields of his plantation in the beautiful countryside of southern Serbia.
I was there with my beautiful wife Karin and my extraordinarily gifted colleagues @gric and @kathrina-sofie, who "tattoed" the colony logo on Karin's arm with an eyeliner!
The famos Serbian painter Danica Masniković was also there. Goran Mitrovic was there for an afternoon and contributed an absolutely fantastic painting, he prepared at his studio.
The above foto shows the group, together with our host Gorazd Cuk and this years selector of artists Maja Zivanovic.
I had started my painting a few weeks ago, since I knew it was going to be too much work to finish while I was there. I posted the work in progress in a few previous posts about "Libra". Gorazd Cuk asked me to paint this, as it is also his zodiac sign, like mine, and he had seen an earlier version of the painting.
For me it was great to set up my workspace outside and to paint with my colleagues and talk about our work and god and the world :-)
Of course it was nice, to have all these pretty girls around ;-)
Made it hard to stay focused on working though... eventually, I decided to finish my painting at home for the exhibition planed in Belgrade. It still needs a lot of work in the shadows and to get the colors richer and more deep.
Gorazd Cuk seemed to like the progress I made and also the drawing I made in his.. ahm... sketch book.
Karin is such fun to be around and she is very creative... Since she modeled for the painting in the first place, she said, we could just as well show it "complete" ;-)
There were also other activities, like going to the city of Nis nearby, where I learned a lot about Serbian History and tradition. After some sightseeing, we spent a great evening there with yet another delicious meal.
One evening friends of the host and other artists came over for a great dinner and party. Ahm... sorry folks.. don't think adding those pictures will help my career ;-)
Of course, I could not pass the opportunity, to check out some heavy machinery, we found nearby...
Oh, and... did Imention the food? Mr. Cuk employed two exceptionally gifted ladies, who really spoiled us with all kinds of local specialties. On top of that, the one lady's daughter, who is a professional chef, stopped by almost every day with more goodies. It was great to have a box with extra cookies for trip back...
It was very hard to leave this little paradise with all these wonderful and warm hearted people. We will be back for sure!