"Painting is the simplest and most accessible of art forms. Painting can touch anyone, even the most naive. And even the works of the greatest masters show an essential naivety and that may be the very thing which makes the painting good. When I say naivety, I mean the spiritual freshness that some people manage to preserve throughout the whole of their lives." - Vojislav Stani. For over half a century the Montenegrin painter Vojislav Stani has been living and working in the small town of Herceg Novi, observing the lives of its inhabitants from the window of his attic studio with a sharp eye and an impish intelligence. Here, so Stani claims, is a microcosm of life. One can see universal emotions and traits - love, lust, joy, fear, wonder, jealousy - played out in the parks and cafes of this bustling little port town on the Adriatic.But if many of Stani's insights come from keen observation of his neighbours, it is his idiosyncratic outlook and his eye for absurdities and gentle ironies which make his work so compelling.
And if he draws on the work of such artists as Bosch, Magritte and de Chirico, it is always with a lightness of touch which leaves one in no doubt that Stani is a major artistic talent in his own right. This book, including insightful essays which trace his artistic development and explore his uniquely vital imagination, promises to bring his work to the international audience it deserves.