SAULA MILE
- Lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia
- Education: Faculty of contemporary arts - Paintings (Master degree)
Saula Mile (b.1970) is a painter in possession of a unique vision and pronounced
fantastic lyricism. His process begins from research of the unconscious through the formal aspects of painting, gradually becoming
more and more populated by the presence of contours, figures and phenomena outside of the visible world.
Saula early painterly cycles were engaged with explorations of material
(sand, pigment, earth) organised into abstract compositions, maintaining an aspect of the shamanistic drawings of Native Americans.
Since 2002, he began to regularly exhibit at the prestigious Salon des Realites Nouvelles in Paris (founded in 1939), the salon with
the longest pedigree for showing abstract art in the Western world. Its name is derived from the idea that abstraction represents
a new reality which stems purely from itself, which incited Saula to think deeper into the meaning of new reality, and to paint with
growing focus and strength of colour.
At the beginning of 2010, a change occurred in the organisation of plastic and dynamic
elements of Saula`s paintings. He found a way to free his paintings and to express a certain poetic aesthetic that increasingly resembled
a dreamscape. Although colour is still of the utmost importance, he was less and less interested in its formal aspects, leaving the
nonfigural abstraction and stepping closer towards the vision of his own “inner film”. His canvases became limitless and layered
metaphysical landscapes in which forms, signs and anthropomorphic forms are released from the previous tablet-like frames, instead
opening the space for the intensifying presence of apparitions, spectres, figures, animals, plants and the natural world.
In the period from 2010 to 2017, Saula crossed from synthetic towards lyrical abstraction and fantastic painting, from searching for
transcendence through precise articulation towards the looser language of forms and signs, aiming to capture the elevated reality: that
which can only be seen in the corner of one`s eye, where paintings serve as the guides that allow the viewer to discover their own
contemplative states, visions and mental vistas.
Saula believes that a painting mustn`t be confined to itself nor to its formal aspects,
but rather to depict life much like that on paintings of Hieronymus Bosch`s Garden of Earthly Delights where "in the vortex of events
there is a lot of what life represents: the searching, the games, the hidden secrets". Saula`s method of working courts chance and
coincidence, and recognises the interconnectedness of loose forms that capture the inner life of those unusual encounters. He is
interested in the eclectic image that has a certain multi- and mal-functionality, the drifting motifs hinting at the elusive nature of
all complexity, dreamt or real.
The basic place of his paintings and drawings is a kind of "wild nature", a flat
unbounded plain populated by the segments of dreams, mythology, theatre, poetry, film and other arts and artists, especially those of
magical realism, surrealism, Southern Gothic or noir, as well as literature (Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Yukio Mishima, David Lynch).
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2019. Gallery Belgrade Waterfront, Belgrade
2018. Gallery Drina, Belgrade
2015. Galerie Chez Grace, Paris
2015. Galerie Abstract project, Paris
2015. Galerie Francois Deneullin Barreax France
2014. Gallery Loft Sputnik, San Francisco
2014. Galerie Julliana Hundertmark, Berlin
2013. Galerie L` Echaude, Paris
2012. Galerie Zeit Zone, Berlin
2010. Produzent Galerie Rammlmair, Hannover
2009. Galerie Prima Centar, Berlin
2008. Galerie Galleria d'arte 18, Bologna
2008. Galerie Art contemporary gallery Croissant, Brusselles
2008. Galerie ART & FIRE, Nice
2007. Galerie Arts Point Suspension, Florac France
2004. Galerie SULUJ, Belgrade
2002. Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris
2000. Galerie SULUJ, Belgrade
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2020. Darkest Before Dawn: Art in a Time of Uncertainty (Curated by Ethan Cohen and Raul Zamudio), New York
2013. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2011. Salon COMPARAISONS, Paris
2011. Nord Art, Kunstwerk Carlshütte, Budelsdorf, Germany
2011. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2008. Salon du Dessin et de la Peinture a l`Eau,Grand Palais Paris
2008. Salon de Lyon est Sud-Est , Lyon
2008. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2008. Iwano project (drawing on handmade paper from Japan), Museum "25.May" Belgrade
2007. 59.Salon de mai, Paris
2007. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2007. Salon SNBA, Carousell du Louvre Paris
2007. PARCOURS DE L'ART , Avignon
2007. National biennial of drawing , Belgrade
2006. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2006. Exposition of Association of fine artists of Serbia, Belgrade
2005. 3rd International biennial of drawing, Victoria (Australia)
2005. National biennial of drawing , Belgrade
2005. Exposition of Association of fine artists of Serbia, Belgrade
2004. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2003. National biennial of drawing , Belgrade
2003. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2002. MatrixArts Winners exhibition , Sacramento
2002. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2001. MatrixArts International exhibition , Sacramento
2000. Exposition of Association of fine artists of Serbia, Belgrade
AWARDS
2001. FIRST AWARD - MatrixArts International exhibition Sacramento
2002. Residence Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris
2006. PRIX MARIN - 60. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
2010. Intenational Workshop Mostrarsi, Milano
2011. PRIX MARIN - 65. Salon des Realites Nouvelles, Paris
SELECTED PRIVATE & PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Dr Rainer Habekost Collection, Stuttgart
Galerie L`Echaude Collection, Paris
Dr Svetlana Bogdanovic Collection, Belgrade
Vincent Basin Collection, Grenoble
Agence Deneullin Collection, Bergen
Hager Bjornstad Collection, Oslo
Petrikic family Collection, Belgrade
Eileen Kaminsky family foundation, New York
Ethan Cohen family Collection, New York
