I was born and raised in Sokolac, a small town in Republic Srpska (at that time, it was Yugoslavia). The happy and playful childhood that I had there is the source of motivation and emotions behind my landscapes and paintings with children playing hockey. These two distant worlds (Sokolac and Canada) are connected in my art through the universal language of images.
I moved to Belgrade (Serbia) to study psychology. Very soon after I began working as a psychologist, the war began. I worked at the hospital for next five years.
One evening under candle light, I discovered my talent for art. I drew profile of my wife. “I made something from nothing“-was my first thought. I got an image from the darkness of a pencil and whiteness of paper. Contrary to my work at the hospital, art gave me a concrete result. “Something from nothing” has the same influence on me now as it has had then. There is something divine about that.
I brought to Canada five paintings, and now I make living doing commissions and selling my paintings, the most important thing- I am in pursuit of beauty in this visual world, in and around us, its complicity and meanings, its mystery. I want to find it, share and emphasize it. I don’t romanticize or idealize, I understand and believe that the power of true beauty can only make us better and bring us closer to each other. It brings out the good in us, if treated well… I am also aware that, sometimes, beauty is a dangerous magic…And I am sure that “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”.
Momcilo Simic
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