In the painting with the descriptive title Drawing – Painting that belongs to the cycle of works created in the last decade of the 20^th century, the image field is divided roughly along the middle. The right half is painted like a relief, with sand mixed into the acrylic, and is plastically protruding from the surface. The left half of the painting is black, and on this black surface the painter drew two lines with an oil pastel, of which the bottom one is angled. This tiny detail in the painting causes the viewer to perceive depth in the two-dimensional surface of the drawing. Of course, this is an illusion, which is strictly philosophically speaking immoral, as it shows us viewers something that does not exist; it is therefore a deception. Just as the prisoners of Plato’s cave are deceived by shadows, based on which they reach conclusions about the outside world. This is the treachery that Magritte speaks about in his painting “The Treachery of Images”, and which was later completely abandoned by high modernism.

This small detail represents the point in Borčić’s oeuvre when he returned to the world of painting, grasping the fact that representation is inherent to art and therefore cannot be escaped.

Text: Jernej Kožar