Man, House, Shadow… or, On All Our Uncertainties

Aldemar Ibrahimović is an artist who sets himself the most difficult of tasks: striving to establish a connection—or more precisely, an interweaving—between painting and time (both past and present), but in such a way that the time depicted in his works neither loses its specific character, nor allows one to suppress the other; rather, both are equally present, being of equal significance in shaping life. These two times—the one that has passed and for which the painter feels nostalgia, seeking to preserve and present it as he remembers it, and this postmodern time in which we live—coexist with equal intensity in his works. The nostalgia for the past in Aldemar Ibrahimović’s paintings lends a melancholic value to what is absent. Yet, this absence—which he renders through people, buildings, space, or sometimes merely through shadows, outlines, and contours—emphasises that this different world has not vanished. Instead, it invites us to feel it anew and, in a particular way, to relive it through art. His works depict life both as it was and as it is.

When he portrays the world of today, the canvas is dominated by evenly distributed (almost geometric) forms. Here we see (though not always and not necessarily) cities and skyscrapers, while the street noise is almost palpable—windows into and out of the world, where man most often confronts himself and what lies within him. Then the close-up shifts, and the focus is set to follow the line from the house to the man as the central figure, who ultimately becomes a shadow. He appears to carry the burden of the past, a grief for what has gone by, disappearing under the weight of truth. It is a synthesis of what has happened and what is happening now; however, the most vital occurrence on his canvases—what we truly perceive and feel—is the articulation of harmony: traces of the times through which he passes, which he remembers, and which he transmits to us without disrupting the balance between man and the world, the past and the present.

The world and man change and complement one another equally in Ibrahimović’s paintings. We witness a genuine return to being, followed by being’s journey into the world, and finally, the transformation that both undergo (or that we ourselves undergo, from the aesthetic to the individualistic), with a tendency to depart from social norms. The present is directed toward the past; we exist in both times simultaneously, making it clear that there is no change without accepting the other, no functioning of the world unless man is the driving force. This is where the process begins: from I to we—that is, from individual to collective memory, which, despite everything, persists in a fractured and fragmented world where people continue to exist and strive to fill the void within and around themselves.

The moment of both individual and collective transformation is fully captured, constantly shifting focus from man to the event. In Ibrahimović’s paintings, the atmosphere of the everyday is masterfully “captured” and then rendered, portraying a sense of non-communication. People are most often merely side by side, not turned toward one another. Thus, the focus is placed on enclosed space (both within man and around him)—be it the house, the courtyard, the graveyard, or the confinement of the “shadow-man” within various geometric forms.

In Aldemar’s works, man holds primacy; he is ascribed a high order of value from which everything originates—life, the shaping of life, word, movement, and freedom. Yet there is also the man who often bears the burden of the past and/or strives to balance between the modern and the traditionally understood concept of time. Aldemar Ibrahimović demonstrates that within the world we inhabit, other worlds exist—worlds shaped by time and the circumstances of that time, worlds that shift boundaries and, for a moment, transform the imaginary into the real (and vice versa!), revealing the extent to which art inspires and enriches us.

Art is not an escape; it is our confrontation with reality. It exists to reveal the imperfection of the world we are in or still inhabit; it speaks of the presence and absence of man; and perhaps most importantly, it shows us—and thereby others—the kind of world we carry within ourselves, the world we present through our work, thus questioning the reflection and the relationship of I– World–I/between self and world. Aldemar Ibrahimović sustains a constant dialogue between being and the world. He explores themes that resonate with both him and us, investigating a relationship beyond time, as if time itself did not exist. This is evident in his works, for there is no conflict between the old and the new, but rather their intertwining and an attempt to establish balance. The themes he selects transcend reality through deep attentiveness to what is old and a sharp focus on what is happening now—both in society and within being itself. We find urban landscapes and modern architecture alongside the traditional house, still standing, where life continues to unfold; subsequently, life, man, and the world are fractured into several micro-worlds, depicted through the face of an old woman or mother or an old man or father, each a powerful metaphor of transience.

The living space bounded by the house, people in front of the house, on the street—most often faceless, shadow-like figures (whose movements seem as though controlled by someone else)—dominate Ibrahimović’s paintings, depicted as if arrested (or trapped) in time. They are mostly static, standing by the roadside, at the crossroads, but deprived of the possibility of movement and recognition (of both themselves and the world around them), their faces turned away from one another. What matters here is man’s turning inward—the idea that change is possible, and that it is most meaningful if it begins with oneself; confronting oneself means opening up the possibility of dialogue with the other.

The people Aldemar Ibrahimović presents to us are in constant anticipation of someone or something. They depart, they arrive, and they see others off. And if their faces are occasionally revealed, we see longing, nightmares, restlessness, nostalgia—as the paintings themselves are most often titled. People by the roadside seem to await something more and better than themselves: a transformation from one world to another, from reality to unreality. The world we see in Aldemar’s paintings is everything that we are and everything that makes us different—a reflection of ourselves, of our time, of the people before us (who are, indeed, still part of us), with whom we continue to share deep points of connection. His paintings make the transition from one time to another easier; they make possible the path from man to man. They speak of the displaced reality in which we live and create—a reality that unwinds before us like a film reel in which he and we confront ourselves and others. Through the acquaintance with and depiction of difference and the different—the modern, the postmodern, and the traditional—freedom itself is ultimately revealed. In this way, by virtue of art, from within a decentred (and conflicted) world, we are offered salvation and the hope for deliverance from all our uncertainties.

Dr Melida Travančić Travnik, oktobar 2022.