Artworks
Biography
Born in 1994 in Gornji Milanovac, Serbia. He obtained his master’s degree at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, Serbia in the class of professor Nikola Božović, applied painting department. He earned his PhD at the same faculty, where he has been working as a teaching associate since 2019. He has exhibited his works in 120 group exhibitions in Serbia and abroad and realized 16 solo exhibitions in Serbia. He received ‘Momčilo Moma Marković’ award for the best small format drawing, third Niš Art Foundation award and a praise by the jury at the 14th International Biennial of Miniature Art in Gornji Milanovac.
In no particular order, the central themes of these films encompass politics, murder, corruption, freedom, power, and more. The starting point for his work is a film snapshot. The artist carefully selects it and then extensively modifies it in Photoshop until they are certain of the desired appearance.
The original snapshot is cropped, converted to black and white, some elements are eliminated, specific parts are moved, others are rotated, and adjustments are made to sharpen, change overall contrast or brightness in specific areas, add words, and perform similar edits. In other words, such an archaeological approach is manifested in the selection of templates that are meticulously examined, digitally reorganized, and materialized using a traditional technique – oil on canvas. This so-called post-digital artistic gesture involves digital media but also includes materiality in its final stage.
Living in a world saturated with various forms of imagery that can be endlessly replicated in digital formats, the artist turned to painting, following the idea that a painting is a unique, one-of-a-kind object.
The choice of grey tones is deliberate, as they allude to capitalism, where everything often appears monochromatic – including photography, film, press, television, computers, screens, and more. Michel Pastoureau referred to grey as the color of capitalism.
Ultimately, Veljko Vučković’s goal is to create paintings that are recontextualized but can still somehow retain the original cinematic aura when necessary. They may reference the original context but are not confined to it. The themes presented in the films remain relevant today. By resurrecting the information absorbed from other media, in this case, film, the artist is primarily interested in creating paintings that are ambiguous and capable of evoking subtle social and political associations.