Vladimir Velickovic

The work

Landscape
2001
230 x 160 cm
Oil on canvas

Velickovic was born in Serbia during the interwar period. He experienced the German invasion of Serbia in 1941, when he was sixteen, and the occupation until 1944. This territory has experienced the Balkan Wars, and Velickovic’s work, titled Landscape, is deeply indebted to the world in which he lived.
It is a tragic and hopeless work. The predominance of dark colors and the dislocated human figure, lying wounded on the ground, may recall Francis Bacon’s transformations of the human body.
A high perspective viewpoint expands the depth of our gaze. A wasteland with bare ground, crows pecking at the soil, even those holes that speak of the destruction of the land and of human bodies.
In the background, as far as the eye can see, the fire.

The artist

(Belgrade, Serbia, 1925 – Split, Croatia, 2019)

All of his work is intense, dramatic, and with a strong existential tension. He is one of the great names of post-war European Expressionism, focusing his attention on the violence and fragility of the human body, and the permanent presence of history.
It is an ethical confrontation with real suffering through figuration confronting violence and the destruction of human life. Animals or birds often appear associated with the most primal instinct, violence, and fear.
Living in France since 1966, he was part of the Narrative Figuration movement. His work maintains a political and ethical commitment: it does not seek to beautify the world but rather to reveal its darkest side.