The event is Bogatsu’s first in many years. It runs until November 20, 2025. Known for his acrylics, Bogatsu describes himself as a professional semi-abstract artist. He says abstraction is described as a non-figurative, non-representative type of art that attempts to represent only the pure essence of a thing. However, Bogatsu describes his work more as semi-abstraction as a genre that infuses and/or juxtaposes the full essence of a thing into its figurative realism.
In his view, despite the possible misrepresentation of the prefix “semi” on this genre of art, it has full artistic legitimacy and authenticity. “It has no less aesthetic impact, value, essence, and independence of both abstraction and figurative without any ambiguity whatsoever,” Bogatsu said in an interview with Arts&Culture. This, Bogatsu pointed out, is his attempt to answer the question, why “semi”, because in his view the “semi” in a pedestrian sense may give one a false notion that “full” is better, or is more authentic, as the case may be in a non-artistic way of speaking. Bogatsu gave examples of leading semi-abstract artists whose universal fame buttressed his point: not in any order, (last century) Pablo Picasso, Henry Mattise, Juan Gris, Robert Delaunay, Henry Moore, (contemporary) Louise Bourgeois, Karen George, Alice Adams and others. He describes art universally as a synthesis of personal experience, quiet observation, and the full expression of one’s feelings and experiences through the artistic media available to them. It takes skill, passion, and organisation to do that, buttressed by a full interest and excitement in one’s own existential phenomenon, he said. In one sentence, Bogatsu described the critical attitude as follows: “It goes without saying that the value of any artistic enterprise must be judged against the full standards of such an enterprise. One can be just as bad as one can get; and one can totally hold peers in awe; and can be judged as more or less impactful, complete or not, or well-rounded. One ought not cave away to friendly fire. As a matter of fact, one actually yearns for some now and then, and I have welcomed that to a greater effect from colleagues, including, of course, my framer!”
