Mario Romoda
WATCHERS
PM Gallery
May 19 – June 5, 2016

Exhibition opening: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 at 7pm

The sentimentality of a moment on old family photos has always strongly attracted my attention. There is something magical about a moment frozen in time, precisely because it evokes in me a specific time code I have forgotten about. I have decided to become aware of these old photographs and give them a new chance in order to explore the time and family I belong to.

The canvases, painted from photographs, tell stories of my family captured in special moments, each like one special small spectacle, such as a wedding, funeral, pig slaughter. These special moments are often the only events in villages that leave a certain trace in our memories. All these events evoke in me a certain kind of spectacle that cannot be compared to the cultural, numerous events that developed cities can offer. But precisely because they are so rare, such rural moments gain some kind of cultural intimate atmosphere that can even be compared to a certain gallery, or some other cultural event. My sense of belonging is often accompanied by a feeling of nostalgia around people who seem to exist trapped in some other parallel universe, but also live in this one. They live close, but lead some completely different life that I am obliged to raise awareness about, to offer it to the city and civilization. These people are my family with whom I have experienced a lot, who made me conscious and with whom I have built my life. The activities in the photographs change their meaning in the sense that the figures cease to be just an intimate reflection of existence, but take on a new role where my night watchers are faced with a new world. I change contours, that is, the drawing of a specific recorded moment, into a coloured cosmos in which a moment maybe does not even exist, just like time. This turns into an interesting contract between the timely existence, where each moment turns into a non-existent boundlessness of intimacy. I wanted to focus more on the Heroes who are not tangible in one dimension only. Sometimes Heroes are the one in the shadows, waiting. Some Heroes are not popular and friendly. Heroes are all around us, some do not even know that they will become and never want to be seen as one of them. Night watchers are everywhere, but what if the world has already ended, and we continue to live in the memory of it? I do not believe this to be true. We should admit that our world is not doomed after all, that it has a future because we are still able to revive and bring to our awareness the past moment and give it a new chance. One world will never be one, there always were and always will be other worlds in which heroes mix with real people.

However, the real answer is that we are all heroes to a small per cent, who survive regardless of the murder of their own multiple personalities that threaten and proclaim the death of the ego. But not completely. There is always that other you who waits, maybe on some other planet to meet himself-you.

Mario Romoda

Artist Biography

Mario Romoda was born in Vukovar. During the war his family moved to the Island of Krk where he finished elementary school and discovered his interest in art at an early age. He finished high school in Osijek with three acknowledgements – first places in state competitions for drawing and painting. His success continued at the Academy of Fine Arts, which he enrolled into in 2005. He was declared the best student during his third year of study. He received a Bachelor’s Degree in painting in 2010. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in February 2012 in the class of Professor Zoltan Novak. Lives and paints in Kučerina 1.

The exhibition is financially supported by the City Office for Culture, Education and Sports Zagreb.

WORKING HOURS
Wednesday to Friday 11am – 7pm
Saturday and Sunday 10am – 6pm
Mondays and holidays – closed
Dom hrvatskih likovnih umjetnika
Trg žrtava fašizma 16
10000 Zagreb