Serigraph # 42

Miomir Mitic, Serbia

Miomir Mitić was born in 1964 in Pirot, is a graphic engineer by education, and a painter and graphic designer by profession. After graduating in 1989 (Faculty of Graphic Arts, University of Zagreb), he was head of offset printing and preparation department and graphic designer in the printing office, and since 1995, he has worked as an independent designer and artist. After many collective exhibitions, he had the first solo exhibition in 1995. His graphic work was presented in the calendar of Tigar AD company and won a special award at the exhibition of the calendars at the Museum of Vojvodina in 2004. “Serigraphy has become a constant graphic technique in Miomir Mitić’s artistic opus. It is a condition of his artistic reasoning, the way of perceiving, experiencing and evaluating the world, the fact of life and art. He insists on the composition he draws out of his life. It is life that imposes this on him and it is him who peculiarly and slowly transforms all the impulses and experiences without any pathetic and need to verbalize himself. Search for the shape begins with a solitary figure, which seems to be based as a rule and principle, through the representations of birds, still life, to purely geometric abstract forms. The motifs are drawn with a clean line, they are flexible and comprehensive, defining the shape with one, usually continuous move. It is a drawing of the search, thematically and stylistically heterogeneous, and always recognizable in the manuscript and the mode of observation. Hence the story of artist’s great skill and extraordinary ability to organize and visualize the elements of the new painted reality, often exciting and profoundly provocative. The serigraphy also consists of color that changes the visual structure, enriches the linguistic sets, and makes them more lucrative and challenging. Analyzing the graphics, the impression is that of some strange line vibration which emphasizes the essence of content, reveals existence, expresses life. Presentation of the essence is so complex that almost every element has the actual reason and justification of existence. Mitić’s figure emerges from space. It is either small-scale or very expressive and abandons the space. The expressionism is stronger in works that outgrow graphism, since the color gives a new meaning to graphics. Not only does it emphasize expression, but also the symbolism that makes the movement stronger, while the line systematically differentiates that vibration. Color has the power to define the essence. It flows, has a compelling move and, regardless of its notable pastuousness, gives the illusion of texture by means of spraying technique. The colors (black, gray, red, different shades of brown, blue and purple) are distinct and subtle with no dilemma about the purpose of the artist’s intention and message. Sometimes Mitić develops into stylization, which is only an attempt to purify elements of lesser importance, thereby bringing some symbols down to the essence. As for the stylized graphics, it all closes in a more peaceful and quiet concept of artistic thinking. This reflection is a certain extension to it, since the colors and lines work together. In his latest work, Mitić simplifies the form even further, gives it dynamism and adds expressiveness by accented painted surfaces. Thus, the graphics become a fluid structure that, with unusual color explosions, speak through the voices of their symbolic values. The composition and its coherence are projected as a rounded and harmonious artistic entity with clearly emphasized humanistic accents. Matter, duration and time are active creators of both visual and philosophical visions. Such abstract structure of graphics allows no easy entrance into their spiritual layer of meaning. The graphics of Miomir Mitić are a kind of puzzle, a place of experience, of free emotional submerging into beauty, excitement, the aesthetic, the hedonistic - everything that we miss out beyond the whiteness of paper surface. On the other hand, the messages this art projects are not so much about the joy of life and the creative act, but rather about absolute values reached rationally. In an unobtrusive symbolism, we find the lost base of our own free spirit. Finally, in all development phases of Miomir Mitić within the abstract form and various thematic definitions, we clearly recognize what they have in common: a confident drawing, a remarkable gift for rich chromatic combinations, solid composition structures, attractive suggestive forms and poetic way of artistic thinking.” Radmila Vlatković, Art historian, Museum counselor