Čarli Grmič 
It all began in his childhood. He painted on every convenient surface, even on a broken window and used aquarelle colours, which were called watercolours at school. He was the youngest of five children and his mother bought him real oil colours. His older brother showed him around Maribor and instead of visiting pubs, he visited galleries. He was »the black sheep of the family« and stubborn, but very special to his mother. His nomadic spirit took him around the world, he hunted scorpions and painted in the streets in Africa to survive, he learnt to knit amulets from North American Indians, he visited Aborigines in Australia, walked around the cities of South America, visited Japan and Bali … there somewhere he fell in love with Buddhism. »For me, Buda is a sincere, naive, peace-loving man«, he says, as if describing himself. If one had to decide to which country his paintings are similar to, one would choose Africa. »Tunis, Libya, Ghana, South African Republic, yes, Africa, its deserts, its rhythms…« He never paints without music, which he always brings from his travels, as well as the clothes he is wearing. He cannot stand confection. Of any kind. His love for painting has been present for as long as he can remember and after his friends and his daughter had talked him into opening his independent exhibition, he decided to do it. He introduced himself in Celje, in a city where he has been living and creating for the last years, in a city, which built a monument to one of the most original travellers of all times, Alma M. Karlin. Like Alma, he might find Celje as one of his longest stops, but his inspiration was brought with him. He likes large canvas and he replaced watercolours with oil colours, but his childhood joy at painting is still present. He plays with colour blending and is not worried about the academic rules and limitations. He is not afraid of figuration, which sometimes occurs as a coincidence in tone blendings or as a naive line drawing over the coloured background. There sometimes comes a storm of colours, which must, before it covers the whiteness of the canvas, first break through Čarli's inner landscapes. But who knows where exactly the birthplace of his paintings is. Tanja Plevnik, professor of Art http://www.wix.com/carligrmic/charly |