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A Burst of Light
Reshat Ameti

28/06/2024

Reshat Ameti… an artist with a significant international career… fought in his painting for a highly profiled and recognizable stylistic section on the path of lyrical, gestural and coloristic abstraction.

Namely, close in spirit and sensibility to the light and colors of the Mediterranean, Reshat Ameti does not only transfer the superficial effects of light into the painting medium, but is interested in some more complex dimensions of the reality that surrounds us. We could say that he incorporates the past, present and future time into his paintings in a specific way because – for example in the cycle “From tradition” – he refers to ethnographic and folklore elements that become signs and symbols in his canvases.

Many painters have a hard time reconciling different painting styles, emphasized gesturality and lyrical pigment in a painting, but Ameti’s compositions are extremely harmonious and balanced, without a sense of structural break. Energetically extremely strong, yet coloristically uniform, the paintings from all cycles nevertheless reveal the artist’s recording of a literal and metaphorical rift in our cosmos, which we feel as an opposition of two principles – primarily material and spiritual. In some earlier works, darker tones predominate, while from 2004 until today, the artist has been continuously working on the layered elaboration of several types of gestures and textures, which he summarizes into complete compositions of predominantly primary tones of yellow, red and blue, and of the black and white spectrum. We must not neglect even conditional Enformel elements in the relief treatment of the painting surface, abstract clumping of pigment, gluing of paper and cardboard (cycle “Traditionally”), which gives the paintings an additional effect of a more embossed texture and enables a different, richer reflection of light on such a dynamized surface of the canvas.

Some of Ameti’s paintings in the context of contemporary Croatian painting will conceptually remind us of the kinship with Matko Trebotić’s painterly thinking about archaeo-landscapes and prints of the Mediterranean, while the fireworks of light and pigment in some canvases will evoke associations with the work of Vatroslav Kuliš. However, Reshat Ameti establishes a completely different structured composition of paintings, which is based on a single central structure or separated fragments that converge concentrically from the ends of the painting towards the empty center where light resides. Not afraid of the empty space in the picture, just as he is not inclined to the disproportionately unfilled space of the canvas, Ameti systematically works on bridging the dualisms of this world on all levels – meterial and symbolic. Moreover, he goes one step further: some of his paintings remind us of distant and unknown cosmic expanses, of some cosmic landscapes where there is no human drama and aggression, but everything is left to the higher cosmic laws of order, proportion and balance. If he deals with chaos in some paintings, it is controlled chaos or lavish, implosive energy of creating something positive, new experiences and worlds.

This will be most visible in the cycle “Breakthrough of Light” where, despite the very dynamic gestural and color sections, we feel a certain cosmic silence and distance, as if we are observing worlds that are not close to the earthly angle. Perhaps the essence of this cycle is not only the search for symbolic balance, but also the contemplative establishment of silence and peace – within ourselves and around us. From this position, we can also understand the allusion to heavenly light, which is more necessary than ever.

Iva Körbler

Biography of the author:

Born May 16th 1964 in Gostivar, Republik of North Macedonia.

Graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje in the class of prof. Ana Temkova, and finished his postgraduate studies in 2002 at the Faculty of Arts in Priština, in the class of prof. Rexhep Ferri.

He currently works as a professor of painting at the Faculty of Arts at the “State University of Tetova”, North Macedonia. He is the president of the Association of Fine Artists of Macedonia “DRAUDACUM”.

He is an artist with a significant international reputation. He is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at Art@Culture. His works of art are the property of many museums, cultural institutions and private collections of world-famous personalities such as Nobel Prize winners, world-famous writers, presidents of states, etc.

He is a participant in numerous group exhibitions (over 300), both domestic and international.

Participant of the Beijing Biennale, Art Festival “Arte Benningen” – Basel and other art festivals.

He presented over 50 solo exhibitions in the Republic of North Macedonia and in the most important world galleries and museums.

Selectin of solo exhibitions:

1994 – Skoplje, “KIC”- “Skopski ljetni festival” / 1996 – Prizren, Galerija “Rada” / 1997 – New York, Galerija TAI / 1998 – New York, Galerija TAI / 2003 – Skoplje, Gradski muzej / 2004 – Pariz, International Cite des ARTS / 2004 – New York, Makedonski kulturni centar / 2005 – Tirana, Nacionalna galerija / 2007 – Skoplje, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti / 2008 – Nurnberg, Ehrenhalle des Rathauses / 2009 – New York, MS Galerija / 2010 – Skoplje, Nacionalna galerija – “Daut-paša Hamam” / 2010 – Priština, “Umjetnička galerija Kosova” / 2011 – Sofija, Nacionalna galerija Bugarske / 2011 – Bruxelles, Wallonie – Bruxelles International / 2012 – Zürich, Keller Galerie / 2012 – Manheim, Bohner Galerie / 2013 – New York, Fadil Berisha Studio / 2013 – New York, MC Galerija / 2015 -New York, “TAI izložba” / 2015 – Hamburg, Galerija “Mytoro” / 2015 – Berlin, Muzej “Steglitz” /2016 – Skoplje, Makedonska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti / 2016 – Peking, Muzej likovnih umjetnosti „Songzhuang” / 2017 – Skopje,Nacionalna galerija – “Čifte Hamam” / 2017- Zagreb, Muzej “Mimara” / 2019. – New York, MC Galerija / 2020 – Skoplje, “30 godina umjetnosti”, Nacionalna galerija Sjeverne Makedonije – “Daut-paša Hamam” / 2021- Istanbul, Galerija “Kedhi Hamam” / 2022 – Graz, “Galerija Ursula Stross” / 2022- Zagreb, Informativni Kulturni Centar Republike Sjevetne Makedonije / 2022- New York City, „MC Gallery’