Gypsy Joy

1969
oil/glass
495 x 560 mm
signature: down in the right corner: MMehkek 1969 cigansko veselje
Gypsy joy: playing harps and dancing by the Drava river covered with trees without leaves. The predominant green and blue colors of lowland wetland landscape. Figures of people moving in rhythm of the music.

Martin Mehkek was born on August 7, 1936, in the village Novačka, three kilometers away from Gola, in a poor peasant family. He finished elementary school in Gola. He decided to paint after hearing about Ivan Generalic and Ivan Vecenaj's success. He paints mainly in winter when there are fewer jobs on the farm and household. Everyday country events shaped his expressive form, sometimes grotesque gestures of the characters (especially in their common threads portrait). The color ranges from coloristic noise to composing decorative relations, enhanced form of the divorced (messy), bare branches of trees to flower smoothing. Portraits are, no doubt, the best part of Mehkek artistic oeuvre. He died in Novačka in 2014.