Vlado Franjevic
Artist and Author

Interview with Vlado Franjevic

RioVida Networks was invited to speak with Vlado Franjevic, a young popular painter from Liechtenstein. He is exhibited all throughout Europe and was invited to present his works in Beijing, during the 2008 Olympics in the Art Pavillion. We had a chance to interview him. We hope you enjoy meeting him.

What do you call your style of painting?

Vlado Franjevic:
I‘m not really sure that we can talk about any clear style of my painting! Why? Because I push all of my feelings and creative energy out directly from my belly! It means, sometimes I paint more figurative and sometimes totally, or fragmentally, abstract, with strong and expressive colors. Fire, power and warmth from my deepest, come out! Anyhow, all time I’m sincere to myself and just so I can be also sincere to the colorful world around. I know, with this, I’m a fair player to everybody who has something to do with my art works! I paint in short series from maybe three to fifteen paintings, then I change „my style“ but after some time I come back again and follow subconsciously something „from before“! Of course, in one moment a saw the problem – if I want take the position on the art marketplace, so that my painting style will be recognizable, this „style without the style“ can be problematical. And, don’t forget: I finished the school as a painter but, I’m not just this! I’m a hard-working, fine artist and experimental, creative worker, who uses different art techniques and develops also complex works in progressive projects. I know, already many said that I’m different… and, everybody is right! So I don’t know if I can stay the same, without losing of my originality! (smile) And at the end, I remember, Al‘ Leu (www.al-leu.ch), an artist and literature critic from Zurich said once, he doesn't see any problem with the style of my painting, he does see just a clear „red thread“ in all what I, as all very creative and talented person, do! Here is his quote: „Vlado Franjevic is a remarkable artistic personality who has not only great artistic potential, additionally he is also particularly suitable as a cultural mediator.“ It’s a good feeling to hear something like this from people such as Al’ Leu is!

When did you first get started - when did you realize you would become an artist someday?

Vlado Franjevic:
First I started to draw comics when I was in the primary school. As a boy I loved to go in the school! I always showed my „works“ to my grand mother with whom I grew up. She and her „critique“ was very important to me! Because she finished no more then four years of school, she thought, she can’t understand my „strange“ necessary to draw and paint! (smile) But she was always caring and took time to see what I made as a child and after that she said maybe: „You know, I’m an old woman, I don’t understand this. But, this is somehow nice, colorful!“ That was at this time, very important for me. I know many, many other „more educated“ people who would say: „Please go away, I’ve no interest for this!“ In the secondary school I started to show my portrait collection of famous people. Some of my teachers were impressed!

For a long time in my life I was very confused and didn’t know what I wanted, who I am and where I’d like to go! After finishing school for applied art in Zagreb in 1985 I didn’t feel that I could live on my own as an artist. At that time, I thought I should be more „normal“ and I began to believe that I was born to be a loser!

It wasn’t really a good time for me than. : I came from a very small village to study in a big town where most of the time I felt lost and lonely. Somehow, most times in my life I was or am lonely. That was not always bad. I did feel often a stranger in my own skin, in our family, in my birthplace, in the capitol of the republic of Croatia where I did studied.

It must not always be a problem to be a stranger or to feel like a stranger, and to feel lonely! It is easier to talk like this when one doesn't feel that way anymore! I think today I have embraced some of my ingenuousness. And I also believe in good and in hope. Right now I know that my dreams helped me to make the big leaps! To go into an unknown world and culture! And to try to grow up from the point zero! I was 25 years old when I moved out from the former Yugoslavia, socialistic republic of Croatia.

Today I can smile about it – there were just two possibilities: a) fall down (no problem, nothing new, I was “ready” for this); b) find my own way, live for myself (much better solution – for me, and everybody who loved me, and who I learned to love. I was also ready for this)! I stayed once, I think it was in 1988, in the center of Zagreb, with my hands in my empty pockets asking myself what I really want to do?!

God blessed me and I remembered that my mother lived at this time in St. Gallen, Switzerland. I said to myself: „I will move in with her! That’s maybe not such a bad solution! I‘ll won't be there alone, int the beginning, I‘ll not have to sleep under the bridges and on the benches in the parks in a country where at the time I didn't even speak their languages!“

Terrible! I didn’t speak any foreign language! It means, I had to learn fast! As fast as possible. No problem, I did it! Since then I even started to become a poet in the German language. As a German spoken author and poet, I got already a prize for my poetry! It’s one of many signs that I worked on myself very hard.

In the year 1991 I got a possibility to exhibit in a small gallery in St. Gallen. That was maybe not just because my art was good enough at that moment. I think that part of it was the allure of the drama of being a Croatian from a war-torn country. They were just starting the war! The most interesting to the galleyr was, I think, that I came from the former Yugoslavia! That was an important aspect for the story surrounding my art works!

After the opening of my first exhibition I read in a local Swiss newspaper about this exhibition and about my person. When I read this, I knew: nobody can stop me anymore! One year later I exhibited on a big art fair in Geneva, where I met a Croatian fine artist Boris Krunic from Eze-Village in the South of France; it’s about seven kilometers from the Principality of Monaco. He helped me. He was very friendly and helped me to to exhibit one year later in the Gallerie de la Cathedrale. That’s in the center of Centrex of Monaco-Ville. At that time it was for me a totally crazy feeling to come to Monaco and see in the windows of every store there a poster with my name and painting! It was a great, great feeling which gave me much creative power!

I came into a foreign world as a child with big open eyes. I was just as always -- very open and communicative and sometimes also naive. Something like this can be also dangerous in a strange world! But, I was lucky. It seems that I worked all time. Yet I think my success also rest on my luck. Life is a wonderful learning process. Am happy and thankful to get the chance to learn! I’m happy also to know, I must do more to show the world that I’m also here! I know where I started my way, and in which situation and what form I came from. I know and understand more and more what I have made until now. That’s just really great!  

Still I don’t think I’m an artist… I’m a communicator who has much more possibilities to communicate with the world then most people!             

Who was your initial inspiration?

Vlado Franjevic:
My inspiration was first small, simple people like maybe my grand mother. My inspiration later was my search for new definitions of friendships, home, homeland, my own identity and understanding of micro and macro world with all its beauties and problems... Later, it was the possibilities to travel and the ability to come into direct contact with other cultures, that became also very important. It is also my deepest inner need to keep people closely together, to make connections and to network; to work for better understanding between people. 

Who are the major influences - I see a little Picasso and a little Miro in your style yet it is unique - who are your favorite painters

Vlado Franjevic:
I don’t see influences. I had “not much interest” for what happened before. I for live today, I understand better the now and here, and I look for a better tomorrow! I love some great painters like Kandinski, Klee, Miro, Picasso, Chagall, van Gogh, Baselitz, A.R. Penk, Immendorff of course… But, I stay never in front of the most famous paintings, painted by most famous painters, and think I don’t know what to do. … I’m very, very sorry! I’m just wondering sometimes how close I am to some paintings, some styles of painting by my other colleagues. I’m happy that I stay in front of these wonderful works, that I get the chance to understand their world and that we can feel similar. My belly tells me always what is good or what’s maybe not so good. Good for me. Good for me may not be good enough for somebody else…

What is your medium - oil, acrylics, watercolor, etc.?

Vlado Franjevic:
First I draw very much and over time I paint with oil, aqua oil, but mostly with acrylic. Recently I made some small sized watercolor illustrativions. I also made wall objects using different materials like wooden plate, cardboard, cords, nails, silicon and then I drew on it funny stories about collecting of hairs from different people. I also made a few plastic works and installations, I made a wonderful video experiment where 29 persons talk in 32 languages one of my poems in my video camera and also a video documentation about the staying and working in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I develop very complex work in progressive projects based on digging up a spiral channel from the ground. For projects like this I invite my friends, colleagues and other correspondents. They are asked to send me their contributions for one theme. After that I involve these contributions in my project and present them to the public. And it brings people closer together, makes new networks; brings different inputs and energies to only one common point of interest. The places where the spiral channels are dug up are for a moment some kind of ritual places of exchanges of different spirits and energies.       

What moves you -- you seem to paint about relationships... how do you come up with new paintings what is the process you go through?

Vlado Franjevic:
As I said, the human being with all its daily problems is for me very interesting. The relationship to other human beings and nature, sexuality and nudity are also very interesting. Dreams about the good or better, more colorful world are also very important for me. I’m not sure that I always know what should be a better world but I search for it ! Concretely, at this moment I am painting for my next exhibition in Frankfurt a.M. in Germany. The opening of this exhibition has to be on the beginning of October this year. I collected also the contribution for my spiral channel project “Magic of Water”. In September I’ll dig up my next channel here in the Principality of Liechtenstein. I prepared also my art work for the participation on 3rd International Art Biennale in Beijing this summer. On 4th July I’ve to fly to its opening.     

Where are you from originally? How has it been growing up - tell stories about your childhood and your grandparents.

Vlado Franjevic:
I was born 1963 in a small village in Croatia. That’s about 70 km near to Zagreb, its capitol. My mother was divorced when I was a baby. She left me with her parents and worked first in Zagreb and later in Germany and at the end in Switzerland where she stayed for 20 years. Durin the last 10 years of her life she lived together with her mother in her and my birthplace. The birthplace of my grand mother is the next village called Bojana. There also my two best friends were born and a famous Croatian fine artists, the painters Anton Cetin who lives in Toronto, Canada and Franjo Matesin, who love his village very, very much, stayed and works there, leads a gallery and exhibits the fine art of other artists!

About my childhood: I grew up with my grandparents in a small house with just two rooms. In one room we had an earthen floor. We didn’t have abathroom in the house and the rest room was outside. 

I was the only red haired child in our small village with approximately 100 houses. In all neighborhoo villages together there were not more then just one or two red haired persons. That was already a sign that “we were not normal”! As a child I was frustrated about this and later I understood, I was marked by God personally. He wanted to show from the beginning to all other people – that I’m different! And, he wanted to see how strong I’m when others laugh about me.

The first four grades I finished in the primary school in our village and I was all time the best pupil and got every year a prize from the school – a book! I promised Tito, I’ll be a good pioneer and work hard! Because we were poor, I had to be the best in the school, to be one of the best soccer or ping pong player, the most kind child in village and then, after all this, I was accepted by other children or people. But ok, I was talented for many different things and could do just about everything. This method, which wasn’t always easy for me and for which I needed very much energy, helped me on my way later! Never give up! I was often near the abyss but it was impossible to fall down! My grand mother was for sure the most important person in my life. She tried to teach me about the good, about believing, about love, peace, ethics, and morals. Every Sunday she went to the church in St. Martin in our village which is called Martinac and she prayed for her husband and for me, for her two daughters and all other people. I think sometime, she invested all of her positive energy in me. She told me once; I was the only child in the village who never walked near another person without saying: “Hello, have a good day!” A lot of people are wondering about me and asked me who my parents are! I couldn’t explain them who my parents are, but I tell them who my grand mother is! My mother was also a very important person of course. She sent us money from a far away world and without her help, we couldn’t live and I wouldn’t have finished school. But, I’m not close to her. She told me these are “terrible pictures”: My mother came once or twice per year from somewhere and I always would run first to “say hello” and went straight for her bags to look what’s in them!  

I remember also, many times my grand mother was going out from her worm bed in the middle of the night and she said to her husband, she can’t stand listening to him anymore and she was afraid that one day he would kill her. That was on the nights when he came drunk from somewhere,he couldn’t sleep and spoke badly to her. That was very painful and also now when I write about, I cry. She said, she would really kill herself but couldn’t leave me alone!

I wasn’t so closed to my grand father but today I remember often his clever meaning and stories about the normal life and world politic! Incredible how much he knew about the function of a human being, about its bad side, about inhumanity. Now I know, he had a wonderful instinct which only people have who are totally closed to earth, nature and their fruitful fields. And now I know that I got also from him good and positive messages. We couldn’t maybe understand each other very well but he told me many stories from his life. Nice and sad stories at the same time, true stories. I was for example very impressed about his stories about the Second World War. He wasn’t in any army because as a boy he had a big accident – a pig bit him on his left leg and after that it grew up and developed more slowly then the other, healthy leg.

He told me about, how the partisans would run behind him and wanted kill to him. And also others wanted kill him… These are many, many nice and sad stories and pictures from my childhood. Many of them can be found in my art works and also many in my poems. This is what I can give back – never give up giving a chance to these people and never give up on the good in them. They will not be forgotten. I’m the only one who can talk and let you know about them.

What do you want to tell young inspiring artists - what is your message?

Vlado Franjevic:
My message is that you have to know first who you are and where do you want to go. It would be good if you have a vision about what you want to do with your talent and it’s important to learn, learn and learn and be open for discussions and to critics. You have to know: what doesn’t break you down makes you stronger. Please believe me; I know what I am talking about to you here! All other stories can be interesting and helpful but just your own experiences are the one and only! Go out, see this wonderful world, meet these wonderful colorful people, have no fear and produce positive energy as much as you can! It can’t be lost. Energy reaches you back. It’s the same if you send out good or bad energy. It reaches you back. Why not work on it and send out of you more positive energy? Every one of us is our own master.

We can try but I don’t believe that I can’t do something like this for you and you can’t do this for me. Every one of us must work on the self! I worked on my luck and so I had luck to meet the right people who I call “the walking encyclopedias”. You can meet them also. You’ll see, in their presents it is warrm and beautiful.    

What are your future plans?

Vlado Franjevic:
In my private world I want to stay always near to my children to let them feel how much they are important for me and that I care about them.

In my professional world , I think big! I prepared myself well to do it all and to make a next step in this direction. To reach a “higher level” I’ve a lot of written material what I want publish, I have many ideas which I want to realize and for these I need some kind of promotional “machinery!

I would love develop my spiral channel work in progress project which I started 2004 in Estonia and 2005 forwarded in Serbia (www.wooloo.org/vlado) and in this year we will make it again in Liechtenstein. My idea is to work every time in another geopolitical space, country – with different humanitarian, social, artistic, ecological themes which are at this time important for these countries! In this project I involve many people from around the world and form every country where I work…

I’m on the end of this interview. Thank you very much for the opportunity to tell you my story! All the best and please think different, and positive!

Next Page