Mitja Ficko is a painter of the middle generation, who is best known on the local scene for his monumental, atmospheric paintings that emanate a range of original visual metaphors through his own expression of emotion and painterly mileage. His images, sometimes more abstract, then again more figuratively definable, are built up by the painter through a constant play with perspective and a subtle alternation between an ambivalent narrative and a confident address, sometimes only formally definable, saturated with colours, shapes, patterns or textures. Gradually, through layering and imaginative construction, the painter builds up dynamic, captivating worlds that draw the viewer into a sensual, mystical world and invite them to make their own unburdened, even daring interpretations.
The exhibition Tiger Balm comprises large-format paintings created in Leipzig in 2024. They are marked by the artist's characteristic dynamism, bold composition and indefinable content, which at first glance belongs to an endearing fantasy irradiated with fiery colours. In a labyrinth of intertwining organic forms, vivid, sometimes almost toxic, colours reveal themselves as unmistakable motifs from the animal and plant kingdom. It is possible to decipher a scattered pack of poisonous toadstools, insightful fancy little clouds, lions, stars, tulips and an intertwined crib of curious foxes. They are supplemented by geometric shapes, constant transitions and a knotted space that gives the paintings a sense of displacement, visual illusion or sensation of a digital error. The spatial interplay of perspectives integrates a multitude of infinite small patterns such as dots, arrows, asterisks, indefinable signs and inscriptions. These additionally potentiate – in a complementary way – the motifs already present in the paintings. For example, bands of dots inundate the toadstools, which are repeated in flattened form in the cuboid foxes. Accompanied by the artist's favoured rippling clouds, stylised trees and rainbows, this new production remains playful, decidedly zoomorphic and full of surprises.
