| About me

Sovilj employs pure colors that blend directly on the canvas—red, cobalt blue, and strontium yellow, as well as black and white. He applies these colors with a palette knife, first in horizontal strokes, followed by vertical applications in the next layer. This method defines the basic structure of the painting—a cage, which is either invisible or merely suggested. The visual dominant is flux—constant flow and movement, defying any assumption of determinism. Sovilj paints exclusively while the paint remains fresh and malleable. Occasionally, he rests the canvas on solid surfaces to achieve a frottage effect. He also presses the painted mass with a board, spreading it across the canvas. The techniques he uses to define canvas textures are as much painterly as they are graphic. Often, his works evoke the texture of aged, mural surfaces.

All of Sovilj’s canvases feature characteristic white accents, breaks, points that allude to moments of white-hot intensity—occurring when material reaches the peak of its endurance, before it entirely disintegrates.

In his creative process, Sovilj aims to set aside ego, drawing impulses from his own primordial depths, giving them form and leading them into dialogue with the spirit of an accelerated, contemporary civilization. His canvases possess an intensity and density of experience, accompanied by a muted metallic sound. A dominant verticality (spiritual) intersects with horizontal lines (material) at various points, surpassing and bridging fields of white heat. In intense dialogue with the substance of paint, Sovilj places emphasis on the painting process itself. This process speaks of both a scream and despair, of faith, of erasure, and re-inscription. Following the unpredictable pathways of chance, he, with a singular technique and approach, defines a captivating field—a not-easily-decipherable chain of synchronicities.

(Danijela Purešević)