On May 15, 2024, the art industry lost a highly-collected artist, Dragan Sekaric Shex after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
“Dragan gave us so much of himself in his art” Says Dragan’s wife, Gordana Yovanovich.
His contact with viewers guided him and he saw art as communication, shared experience, and desire for balance, in his original and elevated style.
An award-winning artist, he began his career as an architect in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he worked in that profession for eleven years. His artistic leanings meant he often presented his clients with paintings he did of city motifs to celebrate their new homes. In 1992, civil war broke out in Bosnia and Shex, who was born to seek balance and harmony and to construct, left for Italy.
In Italy his life took a dramatic turn, and he began to fully engage in an artistic career as well as studying the discipline. In Rome at a mass for artists in Santa Maria di Montesanto church on Piazza del Popolo, he met a community of artists who introduced him to art studies and the sfumato technique which later became his signature style.
After an architect from Pennsylvania, John Franklin, recognized Shex’s uniqueness and organized an art show for him in the United States, Shex became a full-time artist.
Shex moved to Toronto in 2000 and redesigned a small bungalow into a 3500 square-foot house and studio. This stunning conversion gives him a vast and spacious area to both create his evocative oil paintings and display his large works. Many mornings he is up before dawn painting in his singular style.
In 2015, Dragan Sekaric Shex won the Best Artist award at the Art Expo New York. He has shown his art at major art events such as The Artist Project in Toronto, Art Expo New York, Spectrum Miami, and The World of Art in Las Vegas. He has also had solo exhibitions in Toronto, Havana, Belgrade, and Rome.
He will be greatly missed. Our hearts go out to his wife, family, friends, and collectors.
Source link
