About the work of the master of Macedonian painting, Žarko Jakimovski

Žarko Jakimovski (1948) is one of the most important Macedonian artists whose career, decorated with many awards and recognitions, spans more than half a century. Every encounter with Jakimovski’s painting is experienced as an intensely subjective experience that reaches the viewer at the level of some hidden consciousness, filling him with sublime knowledge that cannot be conveyed in words. At the same time, it provides evidence of the consistency with which the artist technically uncompromisingly realizes his objective theory of what makes a work of art great:

“The path, which has lasted for more than half a century, daily to the present day, is a constant study based on the experience gathered from the works of the great masters. It is a discipline in which the most important thing comes at the end: where am I, my handwriting, my sign,” is Jakimovski’s words.

While studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana, Jakimovski learned directly, as from professors, from the great Slovenian painters Gabriel Stupica (1913-1990) and Janez Bernik (1933-2016), supreme masters of the famous tradition of the Ljubljana School. And “indirectly”, especially through his study stays in Holland, France, Germany…, he received his education from the great masters of world art history.

A striking example of this absorption of the best is his stay in Paris, where for months, every day, the first half of the day he penetrated Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa in the Louvre, and the other half he spent with Picasso in the museum dedicated to him.

His extraordinary culture, absorbed through a refined criterion of art that works regardless of time and geography, including the frescoes of Кurbinovo or of Michael Astrapas and Eutychios, “which are our own pure Cubism,” as Jakimovski says; finds brilliant expression in his works as material for rethinking with lasting and authentic handwriting. Jakimovski, according to art historians, from the very beginning, in the phases of self-searching, had already found his manuscript, the key element of which is the drawing:

“First is the drawing, that is the thought. For what you want to communicate, the quickest, most direct route is through the drawing,” says the artist, whose line, guided with perfect mastery, gives the viewer the feeling of seeing the core of the objects being drawn, however stylized they may be.

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In line with what has been said so far, it is ungrateful to single out a work that represents Žarko Jakimovski’s oeuvre, but we will take the liberty of pointing out one example in which his specificity as an artist can be seen particularly clearly: a reinterpretation of the aforementioned The Raft of the Medusa.

The work, monumental not only in size, conveys the theme of hopelessness, with the expression “on steroids”. Stylized but truer than in Géricault’s original, it exudes the desperation of man when all he can hope for is the “mercy” of the elements. Literally, every millimeter of the 258 × 206-centimeter canvas testifies to flawlessness – of artistic skill and creative vision.

Or as Žarko Jakimovski says:
“When you paint, you have to be isolated from everything, with maximum concentration, while you have energy, while you have strength, physical and mental. Especially with large formats – it takes physical and mental effort to get from one end of the painting to the other. You have to master that format, conquer it.”