Artist Statement:
Danko Merin was born in 1962. in Sarajevo. He graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). He is a member of HDLU and the Croatian Association of Artists of Zagreb.
He is engaged in painting, graphics, teaching, illustration, digital design, and art pottery. He lives and works in Križevcec, near Zagreb (CRO). From 2017.- 2019, the curator of Gallery "Kraluš" where are organized many notable exhibitions. Danko Merina's works of art are in private collections in Europe and other parts of the world.
I studied the works of master painters of the Renaissance, Impressionism, Symbolism. For more than 40 years, I have devoted myself exclusively to researching many aspects of art, with a particular focus on painting landscapes and human figures. My chosen medium is oil on canvas, with various brushes, thick and thin, loose, and detailed. This allows me to show the breadth and scale of nature. My paintings speak of light, color, atmosphere, and space, whether they are landscape motifs or human figures in motion. I love the fluid process of creating with oils, always looking for the harmony of colors, textures, and spaces. Imagination, dream, memory, or perception: I am looking for expression and life. Art is a gift given to me to share. In parallel with my previous painting practice, I am still studying painting.
Danko Merin, an artist who makes his artistic paintings in the style of new figuration, echoes of impressionist realism, creates his artistic paintings in layers, with complex structures of his individual experience, far from mere description. This work can be stimulating, refreshing, and humanizing. The movements in these images represent the transmission of vibrational energy. She is like waves of light in the center of man; it meets in a subtle place where man’s physical forms and nature meet. If you were to ask artists what themes and motifs are found in their works, their most common answer would be a self-portrait. Through landscapes, flowers, and historical scenes, painting is another way of keeping a diary. A personal diary where yesterday is a reflection of today’s memory and today’s dream becomes a nuance for tomorrow. Thus art remains a way of remembering past experiences and events and sharing them as personal art stories with others. When I tell a story by painting portraits in the manner of figuration, impressionism, abstraction, the outlines of self-portraits can inevitably be felt through all the transparent and opaque layers of the artistic image and the white canvas. Going through this hall of mirrors, memories, and sharing personal experiences, we can understand the universal self-portrait that brings us closer to the act of creation. Creation, art and the garden are closely linked to the idea of a better world. Hope for the future is at the heart of all gardens and art. Art like flowers always makes people better, happy, and useful. Through the universal prism, for man, these activities become the sun, food, and medicine for the soul. Through nature, I have always been able to learn that colors have more or less red, yellow, and blue colors and how the colors in art paintings can be dark or light. The nature of the changes and the gradualness in the garden told me about the course and layers of the work in painting. Adopting the idea that tomorrow’s flowers come from today’s seeds. It seems to me that this continuity suits. I do not seek to skip or accelerate any part of growth or maturation. It’s my view of nature, the garden, flowers, or mature colors in a work of art. In recent years, nature, especially the forest and flower garden, have been great sources of inspiration for my work.
Thanks for your interest in my work
Danko Merin, prof
