About Danco Kalcev
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Education
1980 - 1984
Academy of Fine Art, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
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Event: Genesis
Dates: 1 Jun 2010 - 1 Jul 2010
"When a painter selects their own style among the styles of the past as Danco Kalcev does, that is an art statement. Using poetics of the historical enformel, the painter declares himself in relation to his own time and past. In this exhibition, Kalcev turns to enformel and abstraction with mastery", says art critic and historian Zlatko Teodosievski.
Event: Genesis
Dates: 1 Jun 2009 - 1 Jul 2009
"When a painter selects their own style among the styles of the past as Danco Kalcev does, that is an art statement. Using poetics of the historical enformel, the painter declares himself in relation to his own time and past. In this exhibition, Kalcev turns to enformel and abstraction with mastery", says art critic and historian Zlatko Teodosievski.
Event: Idols
Dates: 1 Mar 1998 - 1 Apr 1998
This cycle of paintings was produced between 1992 and 1997 in the mixed media technique on a wooden base ( oil, spray, metal and wood ). The pre-formed wooden tablets are freed from the standard frame and hence acquire the features of object paintings. His works are intended as individual "pieces", but at the same time they are grouped into two or three parts in a composition whose sections essentially correspond with each other both aesthetically and in content: they are part of a single whole.
Event: Idols
Dates: 1 May 1997 - 1 Jun 1997
This cycle of paintings was produced between 1992 and 1997 in the mixed media technique on a wooden base ( oil, spray, metal and wood ). The pre-formed wooden tablets are freed from the standard frame and hence acquire the features of object paintings. His works are intended as individual "pieces", but at the same time they are grouped into two or three parts in a composition whose sections essentially correspond with each other both aesthetically and in content: they are part of a single whole.
Event: Imprints
Dates: 1 Oct 1994 - 1 Nov 1994
These paintings were produced between 1992 and 1994. Oil, wood, sand and metal are used in order to give tactile trustworthiness to the painting and to enrich its associative tension. These are graphic inscriptions executed in the relief of the painted structure. Among other things, emphasis is placed on the softly drawn geometrical figures: triangular and rectangular forms that define the field of chromatic surfaces and symbolize intellectual studiousness.
Event: Imprints
Dates: 1 Apr 1994 - 1 May 1994
These paintings were produced between 1992 and 1994. Oil, wood, sand and metal are used in order to give tactile trustworthiness to the painting and to enrich its associative tension. These are graphic inscriptions executed in the relief of the painted structure. Among other things, emphasis is placed on the softly drawn geometrical figures: triangular and rectangular forms that define the field of chromatic surfaces and symbolize intellectual studiousness.
Event: Composition
Dates: 1 Jun 1992 - 1 Jul 1992
This series of paintings was produced in the early 1990's, in oil on canvas. A central motif with characteristics of abstract landscape was chosen and set on a plain surface, partly resembling an icon. The painter used alphabetical, typographical and numerical motifs, achieving graphic effects and unique sign references to culture, serial production and mechanization. The artist engraved the imprints of his artistic imagination into the relief structure of color, in layers and in a controlled manner. The highly cultivated building of the painting was to become the recognizable trait of his artistic approach.
Biography
Kalcev is a part of the younger generation of Macedonian painters who come from the Skopje Academy of Fine Art, founded in 1980. Artists from previous generations had the opportunity of working in two crucial periods: the time between the two world wars, when some were able to join world art movements for the first time, and the period following Macedonia’s liberation, in 1945, when rich and varied artistic activity ensued, including the avant-garde episode of abstraction around 1960.
Over the course of time, a national model of development of culture and art was created, interwoven with elements and knowledge of the past and present. Particular significance was assigned to the Byzantine tradition, indigenous cultural, ethnographic and artistic milieu, as well as influences of world art developments, including those of modernism and postmodernism.
Kalcev lives and works in the south of the Republic of Macedonia, in the town of Gevgelija, located near the Greek border. To live far from cultural centers no longer means isolation as was often the case in the past, it is now possible to be equally well informed of artistic events around the world and also to be in keeping with the ‘spirit of the age’. Different creative approaches and achievements are the expression of the artist’s nature and reflect the power of their talent. Kalcev is an example of an artist and thinker who introduces executive skill and cultivated treatment of elements, distinguishable by its evocative mysteriousness and spirituality. Through the manner in which he addresses, selects and transforms the elements of artistic tradition and modem times, Kalcev belongs to the art and civilization of the new age.
Kalcev is a hermit painter who jealously guards the territory of his own refuge, managing to satisfy his need to exist in a special way: to achieve creative convergence. Nearly ten years had to elapse, however, since his graduation in 1984, until the organization of his four one man exhibitions: in 1992, 1994,1997 and 2009. These represent the painter’s four phases, having a great deal in common but also involving specific changes and enrichment of content. Each individual phase is the result of the previous one and is characterized by a clear concept and fully developed results. A well-thought-out concept is evident, precluding anything incidental or speedy execution. Kalcev behaves like a gifted archaeologist who selects the facts from the past and present, imbuing them with a new form and expressiveness.
His paintings become manifest tokens of his internal life, testifying to a passionate quest for one’s own vantage point in art, composed of different elements. In the beginning it was the influence of Professor Dimitar Kondovski, a distinguished Macedonian painter, merging somewhat later with the impact of modem and contemporary art. Of course, we should not forget the influences and impulses of his native region, in particular his yearning for the spirit of our forefathers. The symbolic space of his paintings is composed of disparate elements derived from his own world and is placed in a new artistic and expressive context, with new semiotic evocations and lines of communication. It can be seen as a special ‘dialogue with tradition,’ both written and material as well as artistic.
The renewed sensibility for old and archaic cultures as well as Christian and Islamic traditions reflects his position that objects and forms of ancient art are a testimony to the autonomy of the visual artistic fact. An important achievement of the avant-garde was when it became possible “to represent reality with a sign instead of simply imitating” (Pandrart), particularly in Informel painting. This contributed to Kalcev’s perfecting his capability to work with visual artistic means and material as well as achieving a harmony between the ornamental and the sculptural/plastic, between the chromatic scale and subtle signs of object quality. The individual elements, as well as their combination, are the condition for the evocation of the magical and drawing common denominators. His skill in the organization of elements, strict form and measure all point to the painter Georges Braque, who noted:“The mind destroys form, the spirit molds it. I like the rule that corrects emotion.”
