“Remember that you are mortal.”
This is the meaning of the Latin expression Memento mori, and it is precisely this idea that lies at the heart of Goran Pamukov’s new exhibition, presented at the Ruse Art Gallery.
📅 Opening: 29 September 2026, 6:00 PM
📍 Ruse Art Gallery
🗓️ The exhibition runs until 12 October 2026
Skulls, portraits, animals, human history, and the traces that time leaves on images – these are all part of Pamukov’s visual world.
Skulls have been present in his drawings since childhood, and his fascination with dark imagery continues to this day. At the heart of his artistic explorations, however, is the portrait – not simply as a representation of a face, but as a way of reflecting on the human being, time, and the transient nature of life.
In Memento Mori, the split portrait becomes one of the artist’s distinctive visual motifs. Familiar faces from banknotes and portraits of communist leaders are taken out of their usual context and transformed through the artist’s expressive painterly language.
Among all these images, there is also a curious exception – the monkeys. Their portraits are not split in two. From there, the exhibition takes us even further back in time – to the Neanderthal and Homo erectus, expanding the conversation about humanity far beyond the present day.
Pamukov’s characteristic dark humour is also present. The pigs, for example, evoke the simple yet rather grim observation that their lives can sometimes be summed up as lasting “from Easter to Christmas.”
🎨 But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Memento Mori lies not only in what we see, but also in what remains hidden beneath the painting.
Goran Pamukov often paints over his own earlier works, deliberately leaving fragments of the previous image visible. Pieces of the original composition continue to emerge through the new layers of paint.
This is also the case with the portrait of Salvador Dalí, chosen for the exhibition poster. It was painted over an earlier work entitled Pterodactyl at Sunset. The old image is no longer dominant, but it has not disappeared completely – it continues to live beneath the new one.
And this is where the idea of Memento Mori takes on another dimension.
One image disappears so that another can emerge. Yet it never truly disappears. It leaves a trace.
Pamukov describes his approach as being close to action painting – dense layers of paint, free lines, drips and splashes, in which the movement and physical gesture of the artist remain visible on the canvas. Sometimes the paint even moves beyond the painting itself and onto the frame.
Thus, Memento Mori is not an exhibition only about death.
It is an exhibition about time, memory, change, and the traces we leave behind.
And about the fact that even when one image is covered by another, something of the original always remains.
The exhibition will be on display until 12 October 2026.
0 Comments