Miloš Todorović: APOCALYPSE INSIGHTS: Curated by Nataša Radojević

The Apocalypse Insight (2019/20) cycle of paintings develops ideas and topics stemmed from a series of work named Gods (2015), manifested by the urge for the visible and (in) tangible, abstract and figurative at the same time. Starting from the fact that the visual conception of God is an absolute abstraction, Milos Todorovic begins to look for a way to make a subtle body shape out of water and clouds, tending to embody an incorporeal being that has the appearance but not fullness of form. (...)

In the Apocalypse Insight series of paintings, an apocalyptic "landscape" occurs in the haze of the underworld. A setting reduced to clouds, water and smoke forms the environment for the dark depths that haunt the artist, a place where the non-existence finds a refuge in the disappearing light while an energetic eruption sets off in that hazy shadow. Rebirth (regeneration) in Milos's work corresponds to the endless cycle (which is painful) in Buddhism known as saṃsāra, the teachings that a person's actions lead to a new existence after death, such as the Universe, which will one day be reborn through infinite oscillations in the cycles of creation and destruction. In the light dimension, energy vibrations pulse in strong rhythm, going beyond the boundary of the visual, indulging in the power of silence and the intensity of emptiness; the wheel of time turns ceaselessly in an uncertain cycle of birth, destruction and rebirth. Constructive deconstruction performs through the stage of creation, followed by destruction, where the painting technique also reflects the need to bring light out of the darkness, suggesting that what previously had been created from destruction disappeared in order to get a new form from nihility – a life. The lyrics of Joy Division band greatly influenced this series of paintings, pointing to the indifference of an average man who is an observer of a life, driven by inertia, without any reactions to the world around them; the motifs of life, memory, love, loss and death indicate the pursuit of awakening, a rebellion against the darkness of melancholy into which the consumed and dead passions are drowned, a good intention overwhelmed by indifference.

Each canvas is filled with whitish apparitions that float at the very border of materiality and concrete representation. Simultaneously, the artist creates a gray, elusive character and erases contrasts. Dots of light lead to trails of hope, balancing a whole directed toward serenity as a final destination. Shapes are defined by the outlines in which the bone structure melts in the milky vortex, from which it evaporates into a coil of smoke, where their true forms and references are most often hidden beneath the mist, between the terrestrial and the sublime. (...)

Nataša Radojević