Gorazd Poposki was born in 1967 in Skopje. He graduated from the Skopje Academy of Fine Arts in 1992 and then completed a specialised course at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences in Arkansas, USA. He had individual and group exhibitions across Europe and the United States. His works are part of numerous private and public collections in the United States, Australia, Europe, Japan and his home country, Macedonia. He lives and works in New York.
Gorazd Poposki accepted the invitation to the Portorož symposium at a time when he had the opportunity to shape thin panels of stone materials as if they were reliefs. He cut the surface with angle grinders as if he were drawing, and he let the sculpting process be guided by patterns of light and shadows. Poposki’s interventions could be likened to action painting on stone and this way of thinking and working is also evident from the symposium sculpture, which is shaped like a large wheel. Poposki altered the compact physicality of the stone material by using curves that intuitively follow and adapt to the play of light on the stone’s surface. The dynamic improvisation of cuts follows the circular sculpture and depicts a weather phenomenon – it could be the bora, or perhaps the tramontane. This gives the impression of tension, accumulated energy that is about to be released. As the sculpture is positioned on the slope of a terrace and is held by a stone at its base, it also gives the feeling of instability. Poposki created a spatial game of balance between a perfect circular form and the slight inclination of the slope, which could one day collapse and trigger the destructive force of a stone body moving downhill.
