Artists » Dubravko Naumov

Goodbye Infinitive 1A/10, 2010, combined technique on paper [gouache, waterco 30 x 22 in

Naumov’s opus with princesses, featured in his BBG exhibition, started more than a decade ago. It’s analogy reveals an existential message by pointing to the artist’s inner struggle with the obstructions of trivial daily responibilities. The princesses, according to Dubravko, are defined by their social function. They share artists’ destiny by following rigid daily protocols and spending their lives in passivity, just like the verbs in the infinitive, undetermined and undefined. This long genesis has been evolving through many of Naumov’s projects: “Infinitive”, “Idioms 196 967” and “Good Bye infinitive”, where the princesses finally take control over their destinies and fly liberated high above the clouds. Naumov is of Macedonian descent. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje, Macedonia in 1993 and received his BDES degree from OCAD University in Toronto in 2006. He has a long exhibition history crossing oceans to Europe, Japan and Canada. His work can be found in the art collections of the National Opera and Ballet in Macedonia as well as in the Macedonian Embassies in paris and Brussels.

“...Expertise and whimsy collide again in Naumov’s series of skillfully airy watercolours depicting women in flight. Against sky-blue backgrounds, Naumov’s soaring muses jet, whirl, float lazily and spin to the ground, always trailed by comet tails of hot colour.
More closely resembling landing spacecraft than ancient goddesses, and sporting nutty pompadours while dressed in oversized ball gowns, these hurtling super-heroines are a cross between Wonder Woman and Zsa Zsa Gabor (who claimed in her autobiography to have been saved from a hotel balcony fall by a Balenciaga gown that opened like a parachute).
Campy and fuel-injected, Naumov’s muses don’t light the imagination’s sacred fire – they burn rubber on your forehead.”
R.M. Vaughan
/Globe and Mail. A Muse at Bezpala Brown Gallery, Sep 4, 2010/


Solo Exhibitions:

2010, Toronto, Canada, Bezpala Brown Gallery
2008, Paris, France, Macedonian Embassy Salon
2008, Brussels, Belgium, Macedonian Embassy Lobby
2008, Skopje, Macedonia Skopje Summer Festival
2008, Ohrid, Macedonia, Ohrid Summer Festival
2007, The rain carries the truth - theme project, Skopje, Macedonia
2000, Idioms 196,967; installation, Skopje City Museum, Macedonia

1998, Infinitive, Skopje City Museum, Macedonia
1997, French Cultural Centre, Skopje Macedonia
1994, French Kultural Centre, Skopje, Macedonia
1994, Kultural Centre, Kochani, Macedonia
1993, Introspective Landscapes, Youth Cultural Centre, Skopje Macedonia

Group Exhibitions:

2010, Blue Sky Project, Japan
2006, Skopje Summer Festival, multimedia project, Faculty of Fine Arts courtyard
2004, Art Colony, Antun Petrovic, Reshetari, Croatia
2003, Skopje Summer Festival, City Museum
2002, Gallery of Contemporary Art, Panchevo, Serbia
2002, Who am I? - curator project, Cultural Centre, Belgrade, Serbia
1999, The first PeepShow in town, CIX gallery, Skopje, Macedonia
1998, 5 International Art Colony, Kitchevo,Macedonia
1996, Icon on silver, CD ROM project, SCCA, Skopje
1994, Eco - happening: Garbage is art, City river quay, Skopje
1994, Woman- symbol and inspiration, KO-RA Gallery, Skopje,Macedonia