Andrej Mitevski draws his inspiration from the distant territories of Antiquity. From this powerful lineage, he creates sculptures full of grace and elegance. An ode to femininity.
Antiquity is an El Dorado for art lovers like us. The masterpieces left to us by the centuries have an incredible allure, leaving a lasting impression on our minds. These works, such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Praxiteles’ Hermes, the Venus de Milo, and Myron’s Discobolus, are only a few examples. With his new series entitled “Torsos,” Andrej Mitevski invites us to an emotional confrontation with the forms inherited from this glorious past—a return to the sources, in a sense.
“I walk in the most distant antiquity. I want to connect the past to the present, to recall, to judge, and to complete,” said Auguste Rodin. In a similar approach, Andrej Mitevski roots his sculpture in ancient territories, drawing inspiration from them. The silhouettes that emerge from the stone blocks he delicately carves are familiar in many ways. Let’s admit it: they seem to emanate from a time when the world was still in its infancy, expressed by artists of that era with unparalleled mastery.
Andrej Mitevski has so deeply absorbed the works of the great ancients that he has resurrected their spirit. His sculpture is a homage. Observing it closely is like traveling back through centuries, abolishing time, and feeling the strange sensation of being closest to the History of Art. His female torsos, deliberately deprived of their limbs as often seen in the remnants of ancient Greek statuary, radiate a troubling poetry.
However, let there be no mistake. Andrej Mitevski’s art, while indeed a subtle interpretation of past art (a kind of hermeneutics applied to sculpture), invests the stone with a movement full of grace and lightness that draws from our present an abstract, radical, and as refined inspiration as possible. His female torsos, with their effective stylization, restore with sobriety the beauty of elongated women’s bodies. I see a magnificent nod and an obvious aesthetic boldness to the passing time, which, mastered by the artist, embellishes rather than damages. Andrej Mitevski’s sculptures are animated by an inner strength and a discreet movement that make them unique and vibrant.
Like his distant predecessors, the sculptor places the body (mainly of women) at the center of the game. His “torsos” are bridges laid across the centuries, invitations to wander between myth and reality.
Ludovic Duhamel – Editor-in-Chief, Miroir de l’Art Magazin
