Interview with famous Bosnian artist Džeko Hodžić

“I AM NOT INVOLVED IN VISUAL ART, I’M LIVING IT”

“I must feel an inner satisfaction that I am excited and that I get goose bumps when I look at my work. I am not involved in visual art, I’m living it.”

You are one of the most important Bosnian artists. For decades your work has been present on the art scene in a huge number of exhibitions. Can you tell us more about the beginning of your artistic career?
It is God’s destiny. It isn’t something an artist, a poet or scientist can decide. It’s God’s gift and whoever recognizes it is a lucky man. My commitment to art was influenced by my family and my community. I’m the third trained painter in the family. It all started from primary school where I excelled in drawing and showed great interest in art. Later, against the will of my parents, I enrolled in art school. They wanted me, because I was an excellent student, to enroll in a technical school because they thought it would be better and more profitable for my future.

And later came the Academy?
Later came the Pedagogical Academy, then the Academy of Fine Arts, and, still later, the admission into the Association of Fine Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time I began to show my work at exhibitions, and, of course, actively worked on my art. Since 1965, I have had my studio. Even at a young age, when I was a student at the Secondary Art School, I rented a studio with some of my colleagues where we used to gather and work. When I enrolled in the Pedagogical Academy I also rented a studio with my friends. Later on, in my second or third year at the Fine Arts Academy, I finally rented my own studio which became my intimate world that I didn’t have to share, not even with my family. However, on the walls of my studio and my home are hung not only my paintings but also ones made by my friends and fellow artists. That way I can better ‘weigh’ my art and learn from others.

The rest of the article you can read in the magazine.