Branko Jankovic, “NOTHING’S GONNA CHANGE MY WORLD”

Room 3
Invited by Massimo Kaufmann

“Images of broken light,
which dance before me like a million eyes,
that call me on and on across the universe”

My work is instinctive, and it’s emotional. I never know what will come out. I want to be surprised. I want the image to surpass me and I find myself wondering where it comes from and what it is. Making a painting is like taking a long walk, without knowing where I am going and always choosing unknown paths, often losing myself in the dark corners of my mind and finding myself a moment later illuminated by the nervous lights of hurrying cars. We proceed to a point, a point at which I realise that the work is working. That point is always mysterious and reaching it is a source of enormous satisfaction. One step later I too am a spectator (never objective), I often find in a painting the different emotions experienced. Painting is an emotional experience. The painting is a concentration of energy, often uncontrollable.The title is taken from the song Across the Universe by The Beatles, although I got the idea from listening to the beautiful cover by Laibach. The song is called a cosmic ballad. I like the idea that an emotion can be personal, universal and also cosmic. I like works of art that have this tendency, even if only in the artist’s head. Even when representing fragments it is important to always remember that all things in the universe are connected. Nikola Tesla said: “Everything that lives is linked in a deep and wonderful relationship: man and the stars, the amoeba and the sun, our heart and the circulation of an infinite number of worlds”.

Branko Jankovic was born in Belgrade in1978. He lives and works in Milan.