ORDAN PETLEVSKI, FLORA, 1961, OIL ON CANVAS, THE MODERN GALLERY IN ZAGREB

ORDAN PETLEVSKI (1930 – 1997) Petlevski is a painter of an enormous imagination and feeling for the material substance of colour. He was an excellent graphic artist, designer and very successful as a book illustrator. He is best known for his organic abstract paintings with accommodated poetics of enformel. Petlevski was born in Prilep, Macedonia, graduated in 1955 at the Academy of Applied Arts in Zagreb. He was a contributor for the Master’s workshop of Krsto Hegedušić from 1955 until 1960. A profound impact on his creative development had Paris, where he stayed on two occasions at the end of the Fifties and at the beginning of the Sixties of the previous century. The first phase of Petlevski’s art work from 1954 until 1957 is characterised by a distinctive style of painting because of his use of stylised figures, nudes, still life themes, figures featuring in interior and exterior spaces. After the first phase follows a short period which can be associated with some aspects of surrealism art, and the year 1959 actually marked the final step in the direction of the ideas of enformel. Petlevski creates enformel combining figurative and abstract painting, it is known as “organic micro figuration”, as the art critic Zdenko Rus in his book Abstract Art in Croatia named it. At the peak of his authorial authenticity Petlevski continued to vary his organic forms, in formative part as well as in colours. These forms are easily recognised however never repeated. Clearly defined lines against the bright background are swelling in its substance in colours and variations of shapes. Thick impasto spots of colour and accentuated texture characterise every aspect of Ordan Petlevski’s painting. Most important one-man exhibitions Petlevski organised in Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje, Sarajevo and Paris, and took part on about two hundred collective exhibitions all around the globe. He was awarded numerous prizes as for example the Grand Prix at the 1st Youth Biannual in Paris (1959), Swiss Art Award in Lausanne (1961), First Prize for painting at the 1st Yugoslav Triennial of Fine Arts, Belgrade (1961), Award of the City of Zagreb for 1962, Award of Matrix Croatica for 1969, First Prize Winner of 1st Biennale of Croatian Contemporary Croatian Graphics in Split (1974) and “Vladimir Nazor” Award for 1979. In Flora, 1961, Petlevski achieved his instantly recognisable visual language, two heterogeneous organic membranous forms one underneath the other in clusters, against a brighter background, undefined and saturated with irregular darker accents accommodated mostly along the frame of the painting. Twisted and saturated forms give a clear impression of a dynamic and irregularity, as well as constant movement in reciprocal iridescence. They grow and spread as a vegetation under a rocky, hard soil conditions.