Biography:
Sasa Matjasic was born in Pula on August 26, 1955. He stays in Pula untill 1974 when he goes to Zagreb to study mechanical engineering. His elementary school art teachers discover in Sasa a particular talent for artistic expression. However, strongly influenced by his family, he finishes secondary technical school, specializing in mechanical engineering, from which he graduates in 1980. In secondary school, professor Julius Klemencic succeeds to arouse in Sasa an interest in general education. This influence has prompted development of wide interests in visual arts. However, hidden impulses and unreleased energy are still awaiting. In 1982 he gets married and has a daughter Tesa, and for family reasons he moves to Zadar. In 1984 he creates his first drawing which is the basis and the determining factor of his artistic "revelation". The drawing which was later titled Expectation and Steadiness was framed by his wife Marie-Rose and placed in their summer home on the island Zverinac. This was the first tacit acknowledgment and support to the future artist. In the same year his first miniature Expectation was sculptured out of olive wood. Later on Steadiness joined it. These were genuine and authentic stimuli. But only in 1990 after having shown his first four works to the artist and a gallery owner Tomislav Cerina in Zadar, his creative energy emerges uncontainably and in spite of war conditions. In Zadar he creates seventeen sculptures out of olive wood. In 1992 he is back in Pula, staging his first independent exhibition in Smitran gallery in July of that year. Since then he stages three more autonomous and two group exhibitions. He lives in Fazana near Pula, dedicating his time to his artistic work and creation in his studio.
"Dreamer of beauty, sweet natured, Sasa Matjasic draws out structure and volume from the centennial olive tree. He works out thinned mass of olive wood to perfection, and shifts to slightly curved forms that then transform into solid static volumes. All Sasa's carvings are suited to touch, and in natural color of wood. One can say that these artifacts have been shaped by hand of a designer-sculptor, as besides their esthetic values the sculptures often turn into usable objects. There is some subtle tenderness as well as grotesqueness in these carvings. Some works possess melodious elegance of Modigliani without superfluous details, while other emit robustness of Brancusi. There is no rough surface among the sculptures; rather, they are caressed by the sensible touch of the artist. Besides olive, Sasa often uses bronze and glass in combination, but he always lets the olive wood transmit its exotic nature. Author's artistic language consists of concise forms sculptured out of wood which freely transform into a soft expression. We can say that the artist Sasa Matjasic has achieved the best animalistic works in his large scope of miniature sculptures: Bird, Goat, Boskarin (Istrian ox), Fish, Dragon…and that in the figures of animals he has uncovered character, while he has given the most spirit in concise forms. As a designer, Sasa has demonstrated profound aestethic qualities in his works, such as Table Pen Set, Petrol Station, Watch…Sasa Matjasic is first of all a dreamer who is longingly seeking tenderness; he is testing duality in persons; he is looking for humility and encounter of two beings; he is searching for interweaving of emotions…. In My Crucifix he expresses the crucifiction between beauty, astral alienation and hidden nostalgia. He communicates consciousness of a split personality in a movement of two forms, which penetrate into each other."
Vera Kos-Paliska, painter
