Moreover, by realizing the video installation, the painting becomes its integral part, transcending from illusory two-dimensionality into concrete objectivity. The painted subject, along with its entire universe within which it exists - the picture, has thus become an object in the fullest sense of the word. All these media transformations occur through emphasized narrative threads. The peculiar figures of metaphysical Dadaistic characteristics that we notice in some of the paintings as well as in the forms of installations are actually inspired by the biblical paradox of the initial unity and subsequent separation of man and woman. The woman, in fact, was initially within the man, only to be later separated by God, forming Eve from Adam's rib. From that moment on, man and woman strive to reunite in the act of sexual intercourse. The painted figures and installations actually represent beings within which both male and female principles exist. At the same time, the existential meaning of women in today's world is problematized on the video screen. With his latest exhibition, Mezak has shown that interpretations attempting to categorize him as a neo-expressionist with pop-artistic themes are indeed accurate but also superficial. His step into multimedia metaphysics with a strong existential charge confirms this best.
Vanja Babić

SÝMBOLON – LONGING FOR WHOLENESS

"It seems to me that people have not understood the power of love at all, because if they had, they would build the greatest sanctuaries and altars to it and offer it the greatest sacrifices..." (Plato: Symposium 189 C5)
According to one biblical tradition, God took a rib from man's heart and from it created woman. According to another, in the First account of creation, God creates man - male and female, as one, as the crowning achievement of creation.
The myth of androgynes, male and female in one, is also brought by Plato in his ethical treatise "Symposium or On Love" to describe the demigod Eros, the personification of creative desire for beauty. He uses the term Sýmbolon. Gr. sýmbolon means a locket, a dice split in half, or a ring that were ancient signs of recognition of friends or bearers of news. Sýmbolon is a fragment that seeks its complement in something else and thus creates, expresses, and enables mutual acquaintance and completeness. Later, as we all know, the word symbol denotes any abstract sign embodying all the characteristics of something. Plato is the first to interpret the idea of the symbol and human being alone. "So from time immemorial mutual love longs in people as a renewer of the natural form that tries to make two out of one and heal human nature. Therefore, each of us is a locket because we are split like a fish stick and constantly seek our other half." (Symposium 191 b) These are the words of Aristophanes, through whose mouth Plato brings the myth of the original life of people simultaneously as man and woman. These beings were rounded, with double limbs and a common head with two faces. In such a form, they were strong and powerful and became a threat to the gods. In order to continue serving him, Zeus decides not to destroy them completely but to reduce their power (and increase their number) by cutting them in half (and if we don't behave well - Zeus's threat is to cut us in half again, so we'll hop on one leg). These halves were scattered throughout the world and they desperately searched for each other, and when they found each other, they could not enjoy love because their genitals were in opposite directions. The gods took pity on them and made the necessary adjustments, but these beings still felt an insatiable longing. Hephaestus, the god of the forge, asked them: "What is it, people, that you want to gain from each other?, and if he asked them again, confused: Isn't it what you long for to be as much together as possible so that you do not separate day or night? For if it is what you long for, I am willing to melt you and weld you into one so that you two become one and that, while you live, you live together as one whole; and when you die, so that even there in Hades you will only be one, united even in death... Love, therefore, is the name for the longing for wholeness and the striving for it." Symposium 192 d-e).

Marinela