Jasminka Novkovska after graduation at the Academy of fine art at the University of Skopje, specialized and obtained a master's degree during a three year study in Fine art at the National Academy of Fine Art in Sofia, Bulgaria. Last month, she introduced herself before the Skopje audience with her fourth individual exhibition in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje. The title of the exhibition "Lost souls" in fact, unite themes on globalization as a main actual motivation, on her canvases. The domination of the political provocation on her paintings was a professional pretext, the critics on her previous exhibition in Sofia, in july-where the main paintings were also exhibited in Skopje, to be titled such as "the Macedonian painter against USA politics with the exhibition" or "the Macedonian painter liberates the Balkan ghosts".....

FORUM: Where such an interest for politics from?

NOVKOVSKA: The main theme of the exhibition was to compare the old style of life with the new one, the ancient civilizations-Egypt, Byzantium, the middle ages-in relation to current living filled in with political preoccupation. I think that it can not be ignorated the enormous present of politics of today's human being in all spheres of living. I could not lie myself to paint something else when everywhere around me the politics is present as a dominant part of the living, even in its daily appearance.

FORUM: The socrealism timely used to prescribe an obligatory doze of subjectivism of the objective reality, daily political function of the art ? What should be the distance like of the artist in relation to daily-political themes?

NOVKOVSKA: It is normal that the painter should observe the themes with a needed distance in the process of the creation, transferring his or her own observation of the world. The relation is much more reduced to the ratio, the reality-facts, much less to the subjective observation of the reality. The painter touches the reality without ideologisation.

FORUM: Symbolization on the first hand? Is the globalization too much pre-forced theme?

The global culture and the local culture are in conflict today. It doesn't exist anymore the cultural understanding among the nations, as Goce Delcev put it.

Although, the thematisation of the globalization for me personally is much more a way to express my personal protest for all that has been happening in the last few years. The Balkan has always been considered conservative, I don't think an ordinary American is less conservative or less limited, however. The protest against globalization in my personal experience means maintaining of the personal feeling, or maintaining of my individuality. I think that I can live here nicely in spite of the advertisements for the commercialized nice life of the western society. Money can really spell ruin.

FORUM: Contrary to that global theme, on your canvases is strongly present the local political motive, endangering the Macedonian identity?

I think that the foreigners see us as people who don't have the individual opinion, which causes, from other site, encouragment of their own aspirations........ It doesn't have to mean that if you are a small country you don't have your own opinion and your own national conciseness.

FORUM: And national art?

In our country, the therm "national" is understood to much tragically, and if you sound national, they immediately place you in a conservative camp. However, the art both, in general, and in my canvases is universal in its message. The touch of the national culture should not be treated in general as a vulgar. The conciseness for your personal being and nation can be a priority, in the way to draw from your own soil where you were born. There are painters, in Macedonia, which can give a lot. When you have an exhibition outside of your own country, it shall be much more interesting for the people of that country to see on your canvases the national culture, the known signs of the author's culture. What interest would be to an American, the motives of a his country on your canvases, if the motives have been simply transferred. Two years ago, I have participated on an exhibition in Ottawa, Canada. We have worked there on open air before the audience. I selected to paint then also on a political provocation, with a French flag. Such a provocation has been admitted by the audience, because the Phrancophony left a deep feature, in their history.

FORUM: Is the collage, as a dominant technique on your canvases, a distinctive yearning, after the design as a continuation of the painting?.

NOVKOVSKA: It can be understood like that. I like such a way of painting, even the poster, because it is a very clear concept, clear situations. It reduces the misunderstanding on an esthetic plan, but absulutly the visual component on the painting remains the most important one.

FORUM: In one situation Marina Avramovic has narrated the messages of her Professor Krsto Hegedusic, who used to say that the painter had needed a single motive for the whole life. In case the painter had had two lifes-then he/she is a genius! How much the multi-medialism is an alibi-method, in the today's art?.

NOVKOVSKA: It can be said like that, because the multi-medialism offers a lot of bluffs. It is much more understood as a trend fashion, without to enter in the essence of the multimedialism. However, as the many things are being repeated, the public gets satiated of all it. Or it may arise something else of all that?