San Diego, California – Madison gallery presents Bosnian artist Radenko Milak, who combines the photographic image with the painterly narrative. Like a chronicler of the present, he addresses major contemporary issues and identifies historical connections. Milak’s paintings are always based on photos. In his paintings and animated films – mostly watercolors with black pigment – Radenko Milak analyses the role of contemporary image production in the formation of our historical and cultural memory. The Bosnian artist’s painting work centers on questions relating to how visual elements are fixed and stored – both in personal memories and as presented in the media of film and photography.

“For his first solo exhibition in California, at Madison Gallery, Radenko Milak presents a corpus of works created during and after the years of stupor. These were the years of a pandemic that had frozen and suspended social time. In 2023, everything seems to have returned to normal. The world has returned to the rhythm of conflicts and extreme climatic changes. We have not yet taken full measure of the impact the pandemic had on our lives. Radenko Milak’s works chronicle contemporary living conditions. He examines the disintegration of relationships in the megacities. He reveals the chiaroscuro of parallel solitudes. He reveals a historical truth that is, for the moment, beyond words. These silhouettes, cutting through architectures that look unreal, are shadows or ghosts. Their precariousness heralds their disappearance in silence. Radenko Milak provokes a subtle sense of anxiety. It awakens emotions, a sensibility to the world and to others, which we know that it is necessary, if we want live fully. The artist captures the soul of the times, its historical dimension. He turns the accidental into a coherent vision.”

-Christopher Yggdre, Curator and Artistic Director, Foundation LAccolade (Insitut de France) & THE ELEMENTAL