“Vita Nuova”
To commemorate this new century and new millennium,
I started to make “Vita Nuova” with marble from 2000.
“Vita Nuova” means “New Life” in Italian. And this
adventure started for a pure white marble.
I went over to Italy for a bianco carrara, white marble,
which Michelangelo quarried for his work, but I couldn’t
find any milky white bianco carrara except small ones. I
needed a big block enough for my work. Then, I found a
pure white marble block sivec imported from Macedonia
.
So, I went over to the Balkan Peninsula where was
just bombed by NATO for ethnic conflicts in 1999, and I
went north from Greece to Macedonia.
I could get a marble block sivec, 2.5 m, 5 tons, in Macedonia. But, in Macedonia,
I couldn’t buy tools for sculpturing a marble at specialty stores like in Italy. I had to
forge my chisels from steel and harden them by myself, one by one.
It was more difficult for me to find a model in Macedonia. I had to go to Belgrade,
the capital of Serbia, after revolution for democratizaition, to find a model.
In this way, I spent almost one year to prepare for my sculpturing. After that,
I swung a hammer on my chisel forged and hardened by myself, until my venus came out
from my marble block. I devoted myself completely to my sculpturing.
Four years had passed very quickly, I finished “Vita Nuova” in 2004.
Sculpturing traces by chisels around her are one of my messages to modern sculptors.
I believe sculptors who know sculptor’s spirit understand me. People never understand me
who ask me, “Why don’t you use any machine?” We need consider again from the origin of
sculpturing.