ANDREJ BJELIĆ: PAINTING IN THE LANGUAGE OF TODAY The young artist Andrej Bjelic is a person at that turning point in his life, which is actually the first step on the road, the first step after the decision was made to resolutely move into the domain of "pure"painting. This road has self imposed, and clearly inevitable. After graduating as a graphic designer, Andrej discovered during his studies that his affinity for painting goes beyond "given frames" and that in fact the only thing he really wants is to be alone with a handful of paints and colors, and to unstoppably produce many drawings and paintings.

As he grew up in Belgrade on the "other side of the river", it seems that he had in his childhood some how absorbed the aesthetics of street art and graphitti art, which is specifically seen in New Belgrade's "blocks". It is important to note that he started working on his paintings that are close to this "street art" long before he met the leaders of the"underground" scene, greats like Keith Harring, Basquiat and Banksy. Andrej seems to be one of their distant "brothers" and relatives, whothus creates his own wild Belgrade "underground" story. On his canvases, which will soon require more width, more space, because he is moving towards working with the technique of "dripping" (dripping paint) indistant associations with the furious move of Jackson Pollock, we see coatings of car paint, spray paint , all kinds of paints, chalks, pastels alternating. He creates a fine, skillfully painted, thin layer-screen, flat surface of the painting, without perspective - in the spirit of modernism and African art, with a breath of art brut… on that surface "action" takes place. Most often there are large characters, some primor dial heads, like masks, or Mexican tomb totems… then there are stylized animals, cats, horses, dogs, on the edge of children's and naive art… a web of threads, lines, inscriptions, like graffiti… azure " clouds ”and“ islands ”of deposited spray…“ dotting ”withpaint from a tube, or fingerprints… all in a vibrant, energetic stroke andunfettered color. Andrej's color has finesse but also courage, no fear; his move is free, the canvases radiate the genuine joy of life, optimism and above all a strong sense of humour and wit, a kind of charm that makes his art highly communicative, popular… reminiscences of his painting language concern those good sides of thespirit of modern age, speed and forces of the modern world…. with immersions in the world of the "primitive" breaking throughexotic nature of his motives. Therefore, there is reason to believe that Andrej Bjelic's work will find its clear and very successf­­­ul path in theartistic sky. Its beginnings promise an interesting artistic development, in a kind of stretched mirror that reflects what surrounds us - a portrait of today in bright, vibrant colors and stripes of neon, and fast, restless,"staccato" strokes.“

Ana Popović Bodroža, Art Historian, Kuća Legata