Burned Memory: an interview with Amer Kobaslija


Amer Kobaslija's thickly layered expressive art speaks of dreams and a world that is gone. These are haunting images of a beauty lost to madness. Amer Kobaslija was born in 1975 in former Yugoslavia. When the war erupted in 1992, he moved to Germany. Amer attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf and studied under Professor Nan Hoover. In the fall of 1997, he moved to Jacksonville, Florida. We contacted him to get some insight into his creative process.

Tell us about your relationship with the Coffee Grinder [a local coffee house where Kobaslija's work is displayed].
"In short, I'm great friend with the owner Slavisa. He has been collecting my work for a couple of years already. We came at this idea...where we thought it would be interesting if we put some of my art in there and so create a sort of a gallery atmosphere. Response has been great and we decided to change the display every couple of months so people wont get bored by always looking at some old stuff. We keep it fresh and many clients of the Grinder say that they keep coming back not only for the great coffee but also to see the art."



Something about the Burned series (more recent works)?
"When I burn the wood, I search for connection. What am I burning here? Am I burning my own past, my memories (escaping from them)…or am I trying to rebuild these memories by stealing the image from the past and reconstructing it – saving it for the future (as a witness to the fierce past)?
I am interested in surface: surface produced by paint, surface of the material, and burned-wood surface. Introduced next to each other, they create some kind of a collision of all these different spaces and energies. In a way, it is like a reflection of the world of the Balkans: various cultures and ideas existing next to each other for centuries, interfacing with each other, colliding into each other, and sometimes, as if wrong cables touched, they set off an explosion, a great fire that burns to ashes everything that it comes upon.

Motivation?
I work from memories. Rather than being memories of specific moments (or events), they are recollections of emotions caused by these events. It is like a river - wide, deep, loud… I close my eyes and I hear a thunderous massive voice of water flowing through my head. So loud at times, almost deafening, that it silences all other voices. Then it takes me in and I don’t mind the sound anymore. Sometimes, I see nothing and I feel nothing; water is brown and muddy and I travel through the blank spots of my dreams, as if the great rain washed-off the shores of past and memories. At other times the river turns deep green and I travel on translucent waves of my yesterdays. Pictures of people and places that I used to know flow around me. I see them all as if  they are watching me, without saying anything; the green water brings them to me, they flash in front of my eyes, and then the stream takes them away. They all appear to be so close and so distant at the same time - almost an arm-length away, but it feels as if there were many layers of something, something that feels and smells and looks like smoke (but it is not) between us.

And when I paint, this is where they come from. The images rise out of that subconscious river and keep occupying my days and nights till I help them reveal themselves into a painting. After that, a new image shows up and the old circle keeps renewing itself.

Drive?

The drive could come from anywhere. Whether you dig inside of yourself, search through your own past and make a statement about it (as I do), or you just look around yourself, look for someone’s face, a trace of light, the line of horizon, reflection in the water, a shadow, or just a human silhouette in a dusty greenish field, in the dusk of a rainy day, standing and waiting for something to happen… Wherever you look, you already know it - it is all there.

Background?
The place I came from not so long ago was torn apart by war. Countless deaths, rapes, expatriates… So many burned-to-the-ground towns and villages. So many burned homes, so many burned souls. Demons of war played their game in full, till the lights of life went off. War. Destruction. Madness. And somewhere among these lines there is also love, beauty... My childhood or better to say - recollections of it are my source of energy. Ever since I left my homeland (Bosnia, 10 years ago) I have been revisiting the place in my work. So, it is intimate, almost diaries like. But on the other hand, the idea behind it seems to be universal. Goya painted war. Velasquez, Mesad Berber, Stanley Spencer and many many others did so
too. More or less, it is always the same - fight for power and all the other stuff I mentioned before. It is still relevant. Wars are still going on? People haven't changed. It is our nature, human nature.

Education?
Studied in Duesseldorf, Germany at the Art Academie. Graduated from RSAD in Sarasota, FL with BFA in 2002.

Inspiration? Influences?
When listening to the music of Albinoni, Vivaldi, Handel… I feel blown away, taken to a divine world of art – world of beauty, pain, passion… The first time I saw Bellini’s Madonna of the Meadows I felt the same - blown away, breathless from the beauty in front of me. Later, when I discovered Rembrandt, Modigliani, Balthus, Odd Nerdrum, James Barsness, Eric Fishl and many others I started realizing how much these people had to say. They all had so much passion in them, and they all were driven by something, driven by faith, demons, fear, love…

People are my inspiration. Human condition. Searching for certain moments. Little things. Things we remember forever, altough often we don't even know why. Eye contacts. Smell of somebody. Beauty. And ugliness (there is no beauty without ugliness, otherwise what would you base your criterias on). Like I said, moments - moments that matter for whatever reasons.

Amer  has exhibited works in the following places: the Selman Gallery of Art in Banja Luka, Bosnia; Altstadt Gallery in Dusseldorf, Germany; The Cornell Museum of Arts in Delray Beach, Florida; FCCJ Gallery in Jacksonville, Florida; Cummer Museum of Arts and Gardens, Gallery 1037 in Jacksonville, Florida; Crosley Gallery in Sarasota, Fl;  Pecci Gallery and Mussallem Gallery both in Jacksonville, Florida. His art is found in numerous private collections all over the world. He is represented by Mussallem Galleries in Jacksonville, Florida.