Many past civilisations remain alive for their cultural richness, although they already experienced their political downfall. Even today, we still admire them and appreciate their grandeur. To Azad Karim, born into the land between Euphrates and Tigris, Mesopotamia is still »the birthplace« in which he discovers, nurtures, and, briefly speaking, cradles his artistic expression. Not only is the author a visual companion or admirer of this world and its »physical« component, but an artist who continuously brings the »genius loci« of his native environment alive as a memory and a reflection. He finds inspiration for his work in the magic power of ancient traditions which speak to him. He is immersed in their enigmas; he travels millenniums back in time among ancient forms, and picturesque legends to find his message and discover the truth.In this way he creates his own, deeply personal and established authorial poetics. His particular material heritage, as well as his outstanding spiritual and cultural potential become an endless source of his inspiration and constitute his intimistic iconography of symbols, signs, ornamental fragments, radically stylised figural elements and Arabic lettrisms. Since the period of Renaissance, generations of painters, writers and other kinds of artists have been setting off on pilgrimages and creative wanders, which would last years or even decades. But in contrast, time and again, to establish some interaction with the painting surface, Azad Karim goes on a pilgrimage in his mind and memory to his own country.His painting surfaces become »walls« on which he records his stories.Walls which were overwhelmingly important already in the times of Leonardo da Vinci and Piero di Cosimo due to their visual suggestivity remain inevitable also for Azad Karim, if not even a more suggestive artistic inspiration. His structures and lettrisms reproduce his memory of the records on ancient tablets and walls which excite and attract his creativity. To him, their literal message is but of secondary importance. He is mostly enthusiastic about their artistic form, their primal and direct nature. Structures and thick textures involve rich visual richness, which go from the tangible and haptic accents to the spheres of ongoing transformations. Namely, on the vibrant epidermis of the painting, colour values are caught into the rhythm of change, which also affects the forms. Furthermore, the mystic and enigmatic nature of the action on the painting is gradually accentuated also by the very »skin« of the painting.The light that falls on the painting has a defining role on the grainy, slightly relief-like surface marked by striped structures. Layers of plasticity throw a barely perceivable shadow and in this way complete the painter's vision. In the painter's latest creative period a shadow is given a concrete role, adopted by the author according to Assyrian tradition. The author depicts it also by way of repeating individual forms.

Anamarija Stibilj Šajn

Foto: M. Milotić

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