 This
is one of my first work
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Drago Dosen's
concepts link him to the early 1970s generation of
Belgrade painters who turned toward a fundamental
experiencing of nature, reinstating thesubject theme in
their paintings. Their art is not only a challenge, an
abrupt attack on a technocratically impoverished and
over-civilized world, but it is also a call tomake peace
with nature and that which is natural in Man; it is an
expression of some unfinished dream of the beauty which
should be returned to art and to Man. Dosen's painting is conceived in the subconscious of perception, more in the sphere of obscure recollections than in clearly-defined forms of reality. He develops the perception rather than accepting it as it is, and so the form on his painting seems to be a late coming recognition of something once known but forgotten, something once loved but lost. His scenes take on the allure of a fanciful fabric of forms which reveals the intimate meaning of nature. Remaining faithful to the shape of the subject, Dosen defines it through the color value of form, thus achieving a calm but fluid and poetically-expressed atmosphere, an ambient of surrealistic space in which light lavishly showers the subject. Then the temporal element insinuates itself into the scope of the artist's imagination, flowing backwards from the present to the past in an introverted, nostalgic quest for the former life of the painting. More than being emotional or visual, this is truly a return to the spirit, to the spiritual; it is a search for the long-lost experiencing of the "painting", whose illusion now becomes reality. Remembrance or, more precisely, preconsciousness is transformed into a painting, the the object of our observation, but this again has a twofold approach, pure image and symbol. Symbolism, however, is the backdrop of Dosen's paintings. The artist's imagination turns the perceivable into the poetic haze of the painting, into the form and content of a new reality in artistic awareness. (Sreto Bošnjak: ,,DUGA " February 1977) *********************************************** Došen's scenes are woven from fine pigment, dreams and nostalgia. They are executed in an almost-forgotten watercolor technique that is rather unusual in our day and age. They reflect the minute craftsmanship of the Northern Renaissance, a touching Neo-Classicism that seems to have gone astray in an age of brutality, the persistence of someone who recalls his native soil with enduring love. . . (Momo Kapor: CATALOGUE 1977.) ************************************************* The fluid, nostalgic ambient of these scenes is brought to life by Došen's ink drawing and watercolors. We can say without exaggeration that Došen has mastered this technique to its pinnacle of perfection. (George Kadijevic: "NIN", 7. May 1978) *************************************************** Došen's scenes conjure up an extraordinary atmosphere, a romantic note resting on the dividing line between present-day aspirations and the heritage of the past. (Pavle Vasic: Politika 15. May 1978) |