Breaking the Surface
Sadko Hadzihasanovic
paintings on copper and drypoints
October 6 - November 4, 2023
Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present an exhibition of drypoints and paintings on copper plate by Sadko Hadžihasanović. Sadko studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo, Bosnia, earned his MFA at the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1984) and arrived in Canada in 1993. He has exhibited with our gallery since 1997.
Breaking the Surface is the first exhibition where we are exploring Sadko's drypoints and paintings on copper plate together, creating the effect of a meeting in the middle of the formal and the conceptual sides of his practice, where the finely drawn and inked copper-based image is transferred to a responsive paper ground and where an exhausted copper plate receives the invigoration of an application of oil-based brushwork. We are also pleased to accompany the exhibition with a text by Zachari Logan.
Sadko Hadžihasanović’s Strata of Light, Surface and Likeness
A preface for context; I have very little experience with printmaking, having worked only with copper plate. What I can say about this process personally, is that I found it a very seductive and gratifying one. Even before etching into the first plate, as I held it, assessing it as an object, I was struck by it’s glow, colour density and it’s weight. In fact, with each etching I produced, I became more obsessed with the plates themselves as artifact, each inevitably marked with an X to end it’s edition, slotted for eternal storage in a cabinet. This felt so strange to me considering the beauty of line and surface, still yet visible after so much process. So it’s not surprising that I would marvel at the richly poetic combination Sadko Hadžihasanović’s surfaces elucidate. Their colour, line and texture combinations evoke the history of painting and the ingenuity to see these historical processes anew with poignant, contemporary meaning.
The layering of technique, timelines and sensitivity to subject within these works generates a beautifully conversant relationship between material, metaphor and narrative. A visual strata that invites the viewer to experience methodologies generally left unseen (only evidenced in reverse on the surface of paper) — in dialogue with the related visual language of paint. Here there is an intimacy Hadžihasanović shares that is rarely accorded to the public by an artist. It’s not hard for me to see why he would want to do this, given my adoration of copper etching plates. With each composition there is a balance between what we see on the surface pictorially and what the two processes give to each other visually- this is deep visual poetry; alchemical. Hadžihasanović’s generosity would definitely fall flat were he not a consummate painter and draftsman.
Not dissimilar to the conventions of a painted portrait of Christ or saint figures in Byzantine iconography, subjects of these works are elevated by the materials used. However, unlike the traditions that constitute the painting of icons, Hadžihasanović points to the natural realm, perhaps signalling the beauty in everyday interaction. A horizontal painting of sunbathers, a fleeting moment on a crowded beach brings to mind both Eakins and Bazille’s paintings of similar subjects. The surface’s history- its former life containing both text and geometric form intercedes rather than disrupts. The energy of the scene, it’s layering of bodies and the warmth of the glowing copper, in tandem with the surface’s graphic qualities suggest strata of memory interweaving as often happens in the human mind; associations not always readily apparent to us.
Hadžihasanović’s visual world is populated by figuration laced with a healthy dose of ambiguity. It is often hard to tell whether these people are known to the artist or not, whether source is photographic, observational or remembered. Boys with guns, are a particularly striking recurrent subject. With these portraits, Hadžihasanović has provided two possible realities, whether these subjects are at play with toys— or are child soldiers. This is truly powerful as we unfortunately live in a world of both realities. The reflective surfaces also have a mirroring effect, the viewer becomes, with their own physical gaze, a sort of readymade auto-portrait. The act of viewing, contemplating these paintings, is not just a moment of attendance but also of embodiment. By the viewer’s very presence they become physically part of the work; it’s strata of light, surface and likeness.
- Zachari Logan, Sept. 20th 2023.