1. Spike, 2.Lunar - Solar, 3.

Stone-Metal

The third solo exhibition of the young sculptor Damjan Gjurov is symbiosis of three
collections made in the past five years and the twenty pieces of art (sculptures) stand for his
evident and continuous interest in many subjects relating to one another, i.e originating from
one another in technical crafting and concept. The main focus of his artwork is the inclination
towards combining unexpected figurative presentations where the primary cause is the
existential issues treated with the esthetical and ethical perception of the human.

The materials the artist uses are bronze, stone and metal, yet bones/horns even feathers
are present in some of his artwork. It is this exact merge of the materials that is crucial for the
continuous figurative interest and transitions towards the abstract and geometrical form.
According to the artist,

“the most important part of the creative process is to understand and feel the materials as
authentic, genuine and even as carriers of archaic attributes” ending up as a monolithic piece of
art with different characteristics of the textural structures.

The system of symbolism is the second important moment that connects the collections.
This is implied in the titles of the collections themselves and the sculptures separately. The
profound, archaic character (in Stone-Metal Age, 2019) is derived from projections that the
spiritual principle of the cosmogony predominates; (“Lunar – Solar”, 2015) and finally the
collection “Spike” - 2020 completes the cycle that binds and confirms the previous two
presenting the human’s position in society.

In the Lunar–Solar collection the artist is not only focused on the symbolical contrasts but the
archetypical principles (male-solar and female-lunar), the visual interpretations (figurative-
abstract) and the materials and their processing (bones-organic, metal-non organic, smooth-
textured etc.) This unity of contrasts results in specific, technically well executed compositions
resembling to ensemble of Chimeras offering multitude of interpretations.

The collection “Stone –Metal Age” is a continuation and conceptual development of the interest
towards the archaic meanings on different levels, meaning how the materials are treated (similar
approach in connecting, combining the elements in one monolithic content) in regards with the
concept and the inclination towards the symbolical interpretations. To some extent sensible, his
sculptures create a metaphysical ambience and bears witness not only to the matter structured
in shape, form and appearance of the fragment and the whole, but the mythological and
universal meanings.

The latest collection of Damjan Gjurov, is a wrap up to the so called trilogy where he keeps the
distinct features of the personal sculptural expression and shows strong interest to depict the
human existential issues using the form of his artwork. In the last collection, the spike is a
metaphor of the human weakness trapped in the layer of the system. The artist emphasizes the
aforementioned anthropological approach in sequences, where the human is the main focus of
everything, consequently as the philosophy in Protagora’s works “Truth” and the absurd,
relativistic “Man is the measure of all things

The symbolism of the materials themselves, their archetypal references and the universal
principles are the “tools” Dmajan Gjurov uses to present his enigmatic artwork with gothic
elements that are not only symbols but they have a meaning. This research approach towards
“revealing” the technical attributes of the materials and the unexpected imaginative relations,
developed by the (un)conscious binding of ideas, creates a feeling of direct or fragmented
reflections of surrealism and the fiction. The fictive and ethnological-mythological sculptures of
Damjan Gjurov, reveal new sources in the sub consciousness, the dream, the hallucinations, the
occasion, the fiction, which makes the expressive approach of the artist to be descriptive and
narrative, symbolical-surreal metaphysical ambient coinciding with Freud’s and Jung’s
surrealism in the psychoanalysis, i.e the visual reality in the entangled contemplative labyrinths
of the sub consciousness.

Maja Čankulovska-Mihajlovska