Davor
Gromilović

Besides working in the domain of painting and drawing, what are your other favorite forms of visual expression?

I think I’m versatile in that sense. Besides painting and drawing I definitely enjoy graphics, mainly silk-screen printing, T-shirt design, art zines, murals and occasionally shorter forms of animation. These are all visual forms that are linked in a way. Of course, the people I have been working for have contributed greatly, as well. And there are still many things I would like to try out.

What is your experience with silk-screen printing?

I have made a large number of silk-screened T-shirts in the last ten years. Recently, I began working on graphics and I’ve made about 15 so far. I’ve printed them myself, but now I let the professionals do the printing. Silk-screen printing as a technique has a lot of potential and offers various possibilities in terms of using colors, overlapping, surfaces and a variety of other uses.

What kind of inspiration lies behind “Hill”?

The Hill for Side Effects is essentially related to my childhood works. Not so much in terms of the motive, but more so when it comes to construction and composition. I use this type of conception in my work today. The Hill as an artwork is greatly inspired by Asian art, specifically Japanese art.

Whose artwork would you like to own and where would you place it?

These would be mostly artists whose work I follow. Among them are domestic (Serbian) artists whose works I already own, or at least some of them. I would surely like to have the works of some other artists that I extremely appreciate, for example I’d definitely like to put a tapestry by Kustaa Saksi in my living room.

If you could design any album cover, it would be…

I’ve had the opportunity to make several vinyl covers. I like vinyl records very much, so I’d be glad to design them for a domestic or a foreign band. I won’t mention anyone in particular, but if I was to do cover art for someone it would be imperative that I like their music and lyrics. It would keep me motivated while working.

Are you especially excited by someone’s work?

Yes. Definitely Jan Van Eyck. And if I were to name a specific work, I would choose the Ghent Altarpiece (the Lamb of God). I should also mention Pieter Brueghel.

The dominant motives in your works – fantasy characters, mystical landscapes, pagan rituals, what is your essential inspiration for these images?

Those are mostly the things I fantasize about. Afterwards I select some of them and realize them in my work. Sometimes I do it consciously, sometimes I don’t. I might even transform them into a completely different context, as I don’t want them to be easily comprehended. I reconstruct my memories and many other things. The works and their aesthetics are the results of that process.

Have you been told that your art is bizarre?

I hear various comments. My works are discussed as humorous, unreal, imaginative, psychedelic, shocking, fantastic, playful, morbid… Different people notice different things in my works, and I am glad about that.

Do you create your art in a specific space?

If you include the idea for an artwork in the process of creation, then it happens anywhere I move. The ideas don’t always appear in my work space. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night to write down my ideas, and at other times it happens while I’m driving or having a walk, but what I know for sure is – there are no rules. The place in which I physically create my work isn’t large, but I organized it according to my needs. I put pigments in a particular place, and there’s also a library, a drawing table, and a computer… That room is intended to be a work space. Papers, work archives and other materials are placed in the other room. I have been more productive since I started working in this space, but I am planning to move to a bigger one in which I would be able to work even faster and with more ease.