Challenging the Support by Bekim Hasaj
26.11.- 17.12. 2021
This series of works is based on an aesthetic research of shape, color, texture and abstract gestures. Using the canvas of much larger dimensions than those of the wooden board on which it is applied, the artist tried to make the canvas ‘fit in’ around the wooden square by bending (folding) it in spontaneous and instinctive ways and shapes. In this way each work gives an unexpected result even for the artist himself. A parallelism that reminds us of the Greek myth of Procrustes. In this series his research has simplified everything by focusing on the very basic elements of a painting artwork: colors, shapes, gesture, support (canvas, wooden board). It stressed once again a total rejection of the figurative representation in relation to the support (canvas) and its presupposed shape and flatness. The same happens with the content which comes into question not by its direct representation inside the artwork but by the means of the process of ‘the making’.
Displayed art:
7 canvases on wooden boards with dimensions 30×30 cm each / spray can colors on multi-folded canvases. The series is still a work in progress.
About Bekim Hasaj and the artist’s interests:
Although I consider myself an interdisciplinary artist, open and ready to experiment outside my primary field of study, I remain strongly connected to the study of color, sign, and painting in addition to other ‘tools’ and mediums outside of it. I aim at an understanding of the genesis of the artistic creation in order to be able to apply and test it in different categories, disciplines, mediums or languages. For this reason, I often find myself experimenting with video art, installation, sculpture, performances, etc. as I am interested in the multi-dimensions that these mediums are able to touch, and I always try to do it starting from my basic point, painting. I like to reflect in terms of co-existence, visible and not, known or unknown, which I see as a parable of my process of art-making.
On the theoretical level, I am interested in psychology, philosophy, social and
anthropological themes, developing and studying them in a form of self-analysis and self-perception. Having said that, I believe that in order to be aware of the totality, one must also be aware of the self. Current projects I am working with are: Exhibition of Scanning Landscapes at Makers Gallery,Vaasa in December 2021, a painting project supported by Svenska kulturfonden.