Sanjin Cosabic was born in 1977 in Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina). During the Bosnian war Sanjin found refuge in France where he decided to settle. He enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and completes his studies in five years. Holder of a DNSAP ( national diploma in plastic expression) option Painting in 2000, he devoted himself to this practice exclusively. In 2008 he set up his workshop in an industrial wasteland and starts to present his works in exhibitions in France and Europe, including the International Art Festival in Sarajevo. Since then, he is regularly invited in group exhibitions and annually presents his works in monographic exhibitions. Different periods mark his last fifteen years of painting. One is a very significant formal research as a result of his studies of Fine Arts around the link between photography and painting. Soon a research on contemporary mythologies become important in his practice. American cinema since the 90s is also a source of inspiration since Sanjin wants to affirm painting as a way to create the mythologies of today. Relying on his own personal history but also thinkers such as Noam Chomsky, he undertook a whole work on the construction and destruction of States, on the mechanisms of finance and international economy, and on the alienation of individuals by contemporary ideology. This approach gives rise to a new “period” in his work inspired by important figures like Edward Snowden or even older ones such as Nikola Tesla : the diagrams, graphic patterns, such as symbols and equations, and portraits take place in large paintings that look increasingly like research notebooks. Since 2014, he operated a turning point by renewing with classical painting. Although the issue of the portrait remains central, Sanjin allows him to assert different directions of reading, not juxtaposed but superimposed on the canvas: with invisible UV ink, he creates a new depth in the painting that the viewer discovers throughout his interpretations facing the canvas.
(Jérôme Diacre)
This artist has been selected by the guest curator Ewen Chardronnet as part of his ArtJaws collection entitled “COSMOS OF MUTUAL EXCHANGES”.
