The exhibition “Hybrid Forms” at +359 Gallery is the result of a long-standing professional and friendly relationship between sculptors Petar Sibinović (Serbia), Milorad Panić (Serbia), and Stefan Ivanov (Bulgaria). The three artists step outside the comfort of their own roles as a protected zone of individualism and self-expression to meet their personal creative pursuits within the context of this current project. A key point of intersection in the works presented is the provocative attempt to bring relevance to their ideas and their realization. The audience is deliberately shown not fully completed works but rather experimental processes and open-ended narratives.
What unites the approaches of all three is the unique hybridity of their creations. According to the artists, hybridity can exist in various proportions: a world of hybrid wars, hybrid technologies, hybrid forms of communication, and symbiosis between analog and digital. Nothing exists in its pure form anymore. Each work is conceived in the context of often mutually exclusive elements that, nevertheless, coexist in a material or conceptual balance.
For instance, Petar Sibinović sees his sculptural practice as a playground. Play, in its ancient, innocent, childlike sense, is at the core of his work. Petar applies an “alchemical” approach to materials and, through transforming something old, used, forgotten, or discarded, he creates a new, parallel world. This world is filled with appealing, confusing forms of varying sizes, which can be figurative, abstract, amorphous, or precise, and have a fluid structure. Sibinović’s approach is based on interdisciplinary practices across a broad range of experiments. His recycling process includes everyday objects like plastic bottles, pipes, toys, and more. The results depend both on his precise intervention, through melting and cooling, and on pure chance—where an “error” in the final art object can add an element of surprise. This unintended deformation gives the final shape and value to the physical outcome.
Milorad Panić’s work is based on his observations of diverse geophysical processes that have shaped the earth’s surface, represented through sculpture. Panić’s fascination with the formal appearance of nature is reflected in his diverse works. He draws from the geological characteristics of the planet, choosing materials conceptually linked to it, such as soil dust, ores, salt, and sedimentary rocks. Milorad is intrigued by the contrasting symbiosis of physical states, like dense and porous, amorphous and structured, hard and soft. His works also connect to the current moment of ecological crisis, echoing an era where changes in the earth’s layers lead to greater cataclysms.
In the works presented by Stefan Ivanov, another aspect of the complex balance in our hybrid existence is explored—the fusion of analog and digitally generated forms. Ivanov digitizes human figures in their natural environments, then employs digital software and mechanized processes to translate these processed images back into the physical world. The resulting objects are materialized using classic, and sometimes forgotten, analog techniques, yet they retain the essence and encoded state embedded within the digital codes.