Dragan Prgomelja

The artist Dragan Prgomelja (born 1977 in Hamburg) deals in his art with themes that are shaped by his immediate environment - the city. It does not matter whether this is Hamburg, Berlin or Belgrade. His choice of motifs falls on randomly collected found objects, whose normality he denies and replaces with not everyday. Thus, the city suddenly appears as an independent concept, which the artist brings to life with refined abstraction and unique image compositions. The artist deepens the accent on the contrast between the clear, sharp demarcations of independent forms and the soft expression of charcoal drawings in which everything seems to flow into each other.

 

Prgomelja's work shows a sophisticated finesse. With the finest gradations he moves in the spectrum of black color. The fascination of these transitions and the variety in execution is what has captivated Prgomelja so much about working with charcoal. By applying very thin layers to the ground, the artist creates forms that generate aesthetic tension and through which everyday things are transformed into geometrically abstract entities. The natural processes that occur when working with charcoal, i.e. the crumbling of the finest charcoal particles, the dust or the acoustics created by charcoal on paper, are of elementary importance to the artist. Through them, sensuality and the craft can be combined. The mixture of calculated construction and the seemingly spontaneous and free framing of his forms with streaks and fingerprints is also exciting.

 

Prgomelja can look back on numerous international solo and group exhibitions. He lives with his family in Hamburg where he also has his studio.