Origins of an Experimental Imaginative and prescient
From early childhood, Dimitrije Martinovic’s relationship with visible tradition has been formed by moments of intense recognition slightly than passive remark. Born in Yugoslavia and now based mostly in Toronto, he has constructed a multidisciplinary observe that strikes fluidly between movie, video, efficiency, drawing, portray, sculpture, and pictures. His earliest encounter with artwork occurred earlier than formal training or concept entered the image, when an icon of his household’s patron saint in his grandmother’s residence commanded his consideration. The picture didn’t merely appeal to his gaze. It demanded comprehension, scary questions on building, intention, and materials presence. That formative expertise instilled a want not merely to depict pictures however to know how which means is embedded inside visible kind, setting the groundwork for a lifelong dedication to creating.
All through his youth and early maturity, Martinovic pursued drawing with sustained depth, creating his talents exterior institutional frameworks. Fully self-taught, he cultivated an unusual capability to attract advanced topics immediately from reminiscence, reinforcing an internalized relationship to imagery slightly than one depending on exterior reference. This era of concentrated observe fostered a deep belief in instinct and recall, qualities that later grew to become important as his work grew more and more experimental. Drawing functioned not solely as a technical self-discipline however as a method of organizing notion, permitting him to translate inside expertise into seen construction with out counting on typical illustration.
The continuity between these early years and his present work stays placing. At the same time as his supplies and applied sciences have modified, the underlying impulse persists: an insistence on pictures as websites of encounter slightly than illustration. Martinovic’s artwork has persistently resisted straightforward legibility, favoring as a substitute an area the place viewers are invited to linger and negotiate which means. That sensibility, rooted in childhood marvel and sustained by a long time of observe, continues to tell his evolving method to abstraction, digitization, and interdisciplinary experimentation.
Dimitrije Martinovic: Schooling, Experimentation, and Worldwide Recognition
A decisive shift in Martinovic’s creative trajectory occurred within the mid Nineteen Seventies when he enrolled on the Ontario School of Artwork, now often known as OCAD College. Learning inside the Experimental Arts division, he entered an atmosphere outlined by risk-taking and cross-disciplinary exploration. This era coincided with a broader cultural second by which experimentation was not peripheral however central to creative manufacturing. Movie, video, and efficiency had been handled as reliable and pressing types, and Martinovic gravitated towards these media with conviction. The environment inspired artists to check boundaries and to deal with course of as integral to which means, rules that grew to become foundational to his observe.
By the Nineteen Eighties, his work had gained important visibility past Canada. Exhibitions throughout North America and Europe positioned him inside a world dialog round experimental media. A very notable achievement got here when a video centered on his mother and father was acquired by the Museum of Fashionable Artwork in New York. This work, together with one other video piece, additionally entered the gathering of the Nationwide Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Such acquisitions affirmed the emotional and conceptual resonance of his observe, which frequently balanced private subject material with formally revolutionary approaches to time, reminiscence, and documentation.
Regardless of these institutional milestones, Martinovic didn’t settle right into a singular mode of manufacturing. Over subsequent a long time, he continued to work throughout drawing and portray, pictures, and experimental filmmaking. Participation in occasions resembling Manif d’Artwork 4 in Québec Metropolis in 2008 and Nuit Blanche in 2009 as a part of the Salon des Refusés mirrored his ongoing engagement with each established and various exhibition contexts. These experiences strengthened a dedication to adaptability, guaranteeing that his work remained aware of shifting cultural and technological situations.
Digital Abstraction and the Return to Drawing
After a hiatus of practically twenty 5 years, Martinovic returned to drawing roughly three years in the past, prompted by a convergence of influences slightly than nostalgia. Observing David Hockney’s embrace of the iPad as a reliable drawing device resonated deeply along with his personal background in pictures and video, each inherently tied to computer-based processes. His preliminary experiments had been deliberately rudimentary, involving finger portray functions and primary Photoshop instruments operated with a mouse. These early works functioned as assessments slightly than completed statements, permitting him to reenter drawing by unfamiliar means whereas preserving a way of play and discovery.
The choice to buy an iPad one yr later marked a major transformation in his workflow. The system provided immediacy, portability, and a tactile connection that bridged conventional drawing instincts with digital flexibility. Martinovic’s latest digital drawings and work prolong a decades-long dedication to experimentation, situating abstraction inside a mutable, digital house. The place historic abstraction sought to interchange depiction with inside expertise, digitization amplifies that ambition by enabling steady revision and layering. His compositions draw from early modernist abstraction whereas remaining firmly located inside modern digital practices.
These works are characterised by instability and movement. Kinds collide, fragment, and overlap, producing pictures that really feel deliberately unresolved. Emotional and psychological states are instructed by coloration relationships, rhythmic buildings, and spatial rigidity slightly than by representational cues. Which means stays open, formed by the viewer’s consideration and proximity over time. On this method, Martinovic’s digital observe doesn’t supply solutions however creates situations for sustained wanting, the place interpretation unfolds regularly slightly than arriving absolutely fashioned.
Dimitrije Martinovic: The Hanging Gardens of the Yurei and Future Instructions
Amongst Martinovic’s latest works, The Hanging Gardens of the Yurei stands as a concentrated expression of his digital abstraction. Drawing closely on Japanese artwork and cultural historical past, significantly from classical durations which have lengthy fascinated him, the piece synthesizes horror and sweetness right into a single visible area. The imagined backyard, tended by spectral caretakers, turns into a website the place worry is rendered contemplative and ache is reorganized into sample. Kinds resist secure categorization, hovering between plant and apparition, sanctuary and nightmare, inviting viewers to navigate a shifting perceptual panorama.
Moderately than presenting fastened symbols, the work operates by ambiguity. Which means is constructed by the act of wanting, as consideration reveals relationships between layers, colours, and gestures. The portray transforms what as soon as disturbed the dwelling into a visual logic that emphasizes emotional presence over narrative readability. On his Instagram account @d9.martinovic, the place many of those digital works are shared, every submit is accompanied by a brief textual content that articulates his theoretical and philosophical positioning. These reflections increase upon the conceptual, formal, and materials selections that form each bit, providing perception with out prescribing interpretation.
This pursuit aligns with Martinovic’s broader engagement with concepts articulated by Gilles Deleuze concerning the strain between disaster and cliché. His observe seeks productive friction slightly than decision, sustaining power by ongoing experimentation. Since retiring in Might of this yr, he spends most days engaged on his pill, embracing a newfound freedom that helps sustained artistic focus. Wanting forward, he plans to discover animation by AI applied sciences whereas additionally contemplating a return to figuration, an surprising but logical extension of a profession outlined by continuous reinvention.
This text coincides with Provisional Trajectories: Latest Digital Work, on view at Gallery 1313, Toronto, from January 21 to February 1, 2026. The exhibition presents a number of Martinovic’s most up-to-date digital works, providing audiences a bodily encounter with items which have largely circulated in digital areas.
