Hrvoje Marko Peruzović / Psychograms
Most people confuse ‘self-knowledge’ with the knowledge of personalities making their own conscious ego. That which is called ‘knowledge of oneself’ is very limited and mostly depends on social factors and processes within human psyche. In this wide range of the unconscious, which is immune to perceptive critique and surveillance, we stand helpless, prone to various influences and mental infections.
Carl Gustav Jung[1]
Having a split personality is tough. You just can’t agree with yourself. If only there were three of us (or any other odd number) so we can reach a decision by voting for or against.
Hrvoje Marko Peruzović[2]
Marko Peruzović’s new painting cycle entitled ‘Psychograms’ comprises thirty-odd medium and large format monochrome paintings made with acrylic paintings on paper. These are largely abstract paintings composed using smudges or signs. Most of the paintings were created as in Rorshach’s symmetrical projective test, a diagnostic method used in psychoanalysis to reveal unconscious parts of the consciousness. Some of them are fairly clearly defined shapes and recognisable motifs, while the others rely on observers to define their meaning. In an interactive relationship with the audience, the painter (using minimal means of visual communication) experiments with psychological mechanism of associations. In the context of Peruzović’s painting oeuvre, these paintings represent a step further from his usual painting practice. Imposing calligraphic drawing is still a firm foundation of the composition, and the scene is still a remarkable symbolic image on the verge of an undiscovered galaxy; however, the distance between the observers and the observed is reduced significantly (almost negated) in comparison to Marko’s previous painting cycles.
Psychograms (Greek psyche, gramma – description of properties of the human soul) are mirrors; focus is moved from the viewed to the viewer. Everyone looks at their reflection – their ‘image’. The works initiated five or six years ago were created on the pages of the bedding plant supply company filing folder, SM-R pattern. This is not without significance for paintings underpainted with self-analysis, revealing the suppressed layers and processes ended by the observers ‘dragged into the scenes’, mainly because the filing folders date back to Hrvoje’s student days, when he discovered them as office waste, saving and keeping them for future drawing. This seemingly unimportant detail reveals the author’s interest for discarded, insignificant, expendable materials, ones that alongside their ‘poverty’ may seem liberating as there is no fear of damage or error in using them. Arte Povera. To break free and paint without restrictions. Everything. Without pretentions and with as little conditions as possible. To surrender to oneself by one’s current self, to the joy of creation intiated by the investigation of one’s own shadow. In silence, which is sometimes the only oasis of meaningful content – a caleidoscope of meaning.
Toni Horvatić
[1] Carl Gustav Jung, Undiscovered Self (Present and Future), Fabula Nova, Zagreb, 2008
[2] fb post, 7 June 2017, 13.18′
Hrvoje Marko Peruzović was born on 28 April 1971 in Zagreb. He completed high school printmaking programme at the School of Applied Arts and Design in Split and graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb (class of prof. Đuro Seder) in 1995. He made study visits to Paris, Milan, Venice and Vienna. He is a member of Croatian Freelance Artists Association and Croatian Association of Visual Artists. Besides painting, his artistic practice involves traditional printmaking, illustration, sculpture and photography. He has exhibited in 30-odd solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. He produced a significant number of religiously themed works: Stations of the Cross in Solin, altarpiece and Stations of the Cross in Dubrovnik, as well as a mosaic placed on the Zagvozd church façade. He writes poetry, aphorisms and short essays on visual arts. He won ‘Post Scriptum’, first prize for literature on social media at KaLibar, Zadar-based literary festival. He lives and works in Split and Bol on the island of Brač.
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