Igor Taritaš

THE ILLUSION OF REAL SPACE

March 16-26, 2017

Exhibition opening: Thursday, March 16, 2017 at 7pm

“It is the inbetween space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture, and by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.”[1]

The compositions in Igor Taritaš’s works explore the possibilities of the medium of painting in an open social context. Painted representations should be seen as carefully designed scenery serving as a dialogue between the opposing parties, not strictly imposing itself with presumed content or specific thematic framework. Taritaš animates our perception of space by simultaneously breaking through the gallery wall and opening the fourth wall and introducing us to the stage, which is now left to the observer’s play. Like Cadena Cotard’s[2] scene left to the destiny of the perfect present. Offering us his spatial imagery, the artist in the same way uses painting as a platform for discussion and corner for whispering. In his earlier works he often uses flat planes and figuratively sampled thoughts, whereas in his later works he deepens perspective, opens up spaces and almost completely abstracts motifs in the painting. Faithful to realism, the development in Taritaš’s work reflects similar reduction of the content and complexity of spatial motifs as in early avant-garde painters (Oton Gliha), Informel-like treatment of surface and colour (Ivo Gattin and Eugen Feller) and dehumanizing spaces (Matthias Weischer). Powerful Rietveld-like modernist architectural monoliths softened with Mondrian-like colours, add to the feeling of rootedness in the scene in the background. Abstracted and dark surfaces of foregrounds and backgrounds are in contrast with middle figurative and architectural elements in the scenes. In the constant formal conflict with themselves, using subtle logical traps and with no presumed narrative, Taritaš’s compositions seem like the scenes from Bhabh’s Third Space. Freed from the assumed semantic value for a new, more relevant and more contemporary discourse, compositions become the medium of the present moment, dialogue, by which the paintings finally establish their dynamic dialectical balance.

 

Vladimir Tatomir

 

[1] Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 1994.

[2] The protagonist of Charlie Kaufman’s movie “Synecdoche New York“ from 2008

 

About the author:

 

Igor Taritaš (Pakrac, Croatia, 1987). He attended primary school in Hercegovac near Garešnica, Croatia. After finishing High School of Applied Arts and Design in Zagreb in 2007 he enrolled into the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated in the class of Prof Ante Rašić in 2013. Since 2014 he has been working as the professor of visual arts in “Antun Mihanović“ Primary School in Batrina, Croatia.

He has exhibited in nine solo and several group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. He has been a member of the Croatian Association of Artists since 2012 and a member of P_3 platform since 2013.

In 2016 he exhibited at the Biennial of Painting, group exhibition “Exporting Zagreb“ at the National Museum in Gdansk, Poland and then he had a solo exhibition in a renowned 2CforART Gallery in Salzburg, Austria and exhibited in a group exhibition JUNGE KUNST AUS KROATIEN in St. Polten, Austria. In 2017 he has been invited to exhibit his works in a large group exhibition “Grand Salon“ 2017, Villa Barberich in Germany.

Igor Taritaš’s paintings are part of private collections in England, USA and Australia.