An attempt to read or find meanings in an abstract art can be as tricky
as trying to understand the song of a bird. Many abstract artists just go with
the flow of their mind and mood. Some artists try to bring out meanings in
their abstract art. The experience varies between viewers based on what the
viewer is seeing or feeling.
Artist Resul Jusufi is a social person. He loves travelling and living
in different places for few years and then moving on to new place. His dream is
to settle in United States of America. His abstract art has a lot to do with
social themes which he portrays in his different forms of creative works. These
may be about people living in cities, or maybe the need for people to reach out
to each other, or the attachment of people to their positions or occupation
etc. He depicts his sociological thoughts and emotions towards such subjects
through the colors, abstract forms, words or numbers. The chaos of the city and
the positivity amidst that can be seen in the abstract cityscapes of artist
Resul Jusufi. The portal to each home is the door, but the windows provide the
sneak peak to the world inside the sanctuary called home. Though it is the
tangible living beings that make a building a home, the intangible element of
their thoughts, dreams, desires, intellect etc form a different level of psychic
world. Today most of the living and nonliving beings have a numerical or
digital identity associated with numbers or codes, such as the social security
numbers or individual identity numbers for individuals, codes for objects etc. It
is also a world where numbers in various forms like phone numbers, street
numbers, codes etc gets importance. With these numbers emotions too are
attached at times. For eg. The happiness associated with seeing the telephone
number of one’s beloved or to the date when one’s salary gets credited, the
stress on thinking about the amount of loan etc. A world of color, numbers,
logic all leave their prints like foot prints of our existence. The search for
love, freedom inspite of the bondages of the emotions of a chaotic world finds
its way through the portals amidst the colors like the sneak peek into lives
inside homes in high rises seen through the windows and doors. These words or
phrases like “Good Things are coming” give a feeling of goodness amidst the
chaos in his cityscapes; like an oasis in a dessert. The colours reflect his
feelings about the nature, certain psychological or spiritual state. Winters
flow in to his cityscapes in whites and greys; while springs through greens.
It is not just cityscapes he paints. Resul says that he paint feelings,
not just objects and nature. He paints feelings about nature, one object, or
one situation that has happened in his life. Resul is an artist who is
extrovert and loves being with people. He says human beings cannot live without
each other’s company and in seclusion. The social commitments, behaviour etc.
makes human a social being. In our childhood we have friends in school,
neighbourhood etc. but as we grow up in some cases our friend circle reduces.
Reasons can be many, but knowingly unknowingly we start becoming more lonely or
selfish. Sometimes people even become lonely due to reasons such as losing
their dear ones, bitter experiences in life, due to sickness and old age. It is
hard to be alone. We think lesser about others or bother to understand or help
others. As the phrase “to put in another’s shoes” suggest we should try to
think about things/events by trying to being in the other person’s position. This
empathetic attitude helps a lot to change one’s attitude. This can many times
reduce tensions and the causes of quarrels etc. When somebody is suffering or
going down in life, one should give the person a hand or a chance. Such an
action can make the world a better place to live. Resul has also collaborated his art works with
his short films and theatrical workshops. One such collaboration is in lines
with his short film “The Alone Shoes”. This 3 minutes long short film focuses
on the shoes of people walking with single footwear while holding the other, in
a small place. There is a single shoe left in the centre of the place. By the
pace of the walkers it does not look like anyone bothers about the single shoe. After some busy paces they circle around the
single shoe and one of them picks the shoe. Then they start exchanging the
shoes amongst themselves. In the end all wear odd pair of shoes. Love and
understanding spreads amongst them.
To express about loneliness the artist created an artistic installation
using different types of shoes of different colors and types. The shoes were
arranged also according to gender and put in different artistic forms on the
walls of the gallery. Shoes were installed inside three wooden frames of
different sizes. Outside the tableau is the lonely shoe. Some of the shoes put
without frames also some of them will be put on some boxes and the others up at
ceiling using a rope net. Another of Resul’s art works is in the form of an
installation clubbed with his abstract painting background. In this artwork
there is a large cloth canvas with lot of black footprints depicting the
movement of a crowd, while a single shoe lies outside the canvas. This
installation conveys the same meaning as that of the short film. There are
other art installations in the same theme of “The Alone Shoes”.
Through his abstract works Resul
conveys to the onlooker to focus on good things in life such as love, trust,
hope etc., to understand, support one another so as to make the world a better
place.
Resul Jusufi was born in 1968 in Kosovo. He has studied at the Technical Faculty of the University of Pristina (Kosovo), at the Academy of Arts in Tirana (Albania) and at the Academy of Film and Television in Warsaw (Poland). His surrealist book was published in 1995 in Tirana. He founded several theatre groups, realized several theatre plays. Other forms of artistic presentation include installations, performances and theatrical workshops. Twenty years ago, he found his way to abstract painting and since then has participated in many individual and collective exhibitions. His art presentations are popular in Kosovo, Albania, Poland, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Austria. He presently lives in Graz (Austria) since 2017.
