Alen Sehovic Explore Mondoir Studio Nationality: Hungarian Artistic discipline: painting Based in: Novi Pazar, RS BiographyAlen Šehović (b. 2002, Subotica, Serbia) is a Serbian painter based in Belgrade. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 2023 under the mentorship of Professor Branko Raković, after studying in the class of Professor Jasmina Kalić. His practice focuses on the relationship between painting and cinematic imagery, examining how psychological tension can be constructed through colour, material and spatial composition. Working primarily with oil on canvas and industrial materials, Šehović develops large-scale paintings that draw upon the visual language of horror cinema while remaining firmly rooted in the history of painting. Rather than referencing specific narratives, his works investigate the instability of images through fragmentation, theatrical space, material transformation and the physical presence of paint. His recurring motifs—anonymous figures, angels, landscapes, architectural structures and cinematic lighting form an evolving visual vocabulary that explores perception, memory and emotional displacement. Šehović has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Serbia and abroad. He is the recipient of the Stevan Knežević Award for drawing. He currently lives and works in Novi Pazar, Serbia. Artist StatementCinema has always possessed the ability to transform ordinary spaces into psychological ones. Through framing, light, rhythm and interruption, it constructs emotional realities that often feel more convincing than lived experience. My paintings emerge from this territory. Rather than borrowing narratives from horror films, I examine the visual structures through which cinema produces tension, uncertainty and desire. Horror becomes less a genre than a way of seeing—a language capable of exposing the fragile boundary between attraction and disturbance. The Horror series does not illustrate films or reconstruct recognizable scenes. Instead, it isolates fragments of cinematic imagery and removes them from their original narrative function. A beam of artificial light, an interrupted gesture, an empty landscape, a curtain, an anonymous body, a decorative surface that suddenly becomes threatening. Detached from story, these elements begin to operate according to the logic of painting, where meaning is never fixed but constantly negotiated through colour, material and composition. Working with oil on canvas and industrial polyester, I approach each painting as a constructed image rather than a spontaneous gesture. Layers of paint are accumulated, interrupted, buried and revealed, allowing the surface to function simultaneously as object, screen and illusion. Thick material passages coexist with transparent veils of colour, fluorescent interventions and abrupt shifts between representation and abstraction. Images emerge only partially before dissolving back into the surface, remaining suspended between appearance and disappearance. The visual language of horror cinema offers a unique paradox. It relies on spectacle while withholding certainty; it seduces through beauty while suggesting violence that often remains unseen. My paintings attempt to preserve this contradiction. Fear is rarely represented directly. Instead, it survives as atmosphere, anticipation and psychological pressure embedded within the image itself. What appears familiar gradually becomes unstable, while decorative colour, luminous surfaces and carefully orchestrated compositions conceal an underlying sense of unease. Recurring motifs including anonymous figures, animals, warriors, architectural structures, theatrical curtains, fragmented landscapes and cinematic lighting circulate throughout the series without becoming fixed symbols. Their significance changes from one painting to another. A landscape may become both memory and stage; a curtain may conceal, reveal or simply insist on the artificiality of representation itself. These elements create a visual vocabulary that remains intentionally open, allowing each work to generate its own psychological conditions rather than communicate a predetermined narrative. My interest ultimately lies in the relationship between painting and cinema as two distinct yet deeply interconnected systems of image-making. While cinema unfolds through time, painting compresses time into a single surface. The Horror series occupies the point where these two languages intersect. Each painting behaves like a suspended cinematic moment—one that exists before explanation and after resolution. Narrative has already collapsed, yet its emotional residue remains embedded within colour, material and form. Rather than translating horror into painting, I use painting to investigate why certain images continue to disturb us long after their stories have disappeared. In this space, horror becomes inseparable from the act of looking itself. The paintings invite prolonged observation, where attraction and anxiety, beauty and instability, material presence and cinematic illusion continuously exchange places Exhibitions2021- International student exhibition in Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, group exhibition 2021- Final exhibition of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- 49th exhibition of student drawings in the Youth Center, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- Final exhibition of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- Evening Nude, FLU Gallery, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- Exhibition of awarded students, FLU Gallery, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- 50th exhibition of student drawings in the Youth Center, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- Exhibition "30x30", Novi Sad, Belgrade, group exhibition 2022- Exhibition of young artists, cultural center Ribnica, group exhibition 2023- 51st exhibition of student drawings in the Youth Center, Belgrade, group exhibition 2023- Final exhibition of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Belgrade, group exhibition 2023- Biennial of student drawing, Student town, Belgrade, group exhibition 2024-”PERSPECTIVE 24", Štab gallery, group exhibition Awards"Stevan Knežević" drawing award EducationFaculty of Fine Arts Belgrade
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