Zvonimir Kamenar
Croatia
Untitled / Forma viva 1981
steel / 465 x 383 x 247 cm / roundabout, Ravne
In the second half of the 1970s, painter and sculptor Zvonimir Kamenar from Rijeka exhibited successfully the fragmentarily open and expressively dramatic organic forms designed in bronze. The ‘living form’ on display in the centre of the main roundabout in front of the entrance to the ironworks is calmer and structurally purer, but it has nevertheless retained all the characteristics and the elementary charge of Kamenar’s sculptural language: the problems of the relationship between the shell and the core and of the laid-out sculptural masses, the dialogue between the positive and the negative volume, and the restless contours that offer interesting and attractive views of the statue from different points of view during the circular ride.
Zvonimir Kamenar was born on 4 May, 1939, in Sušak near Rijeka, Croatia. In 1960, he completed his education in the department of industrial design at the School of Applied Art in Zagreb. He studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, graduating in 1964 in Prof Vanja Radauš’s class. Since 1965, he has been active as freelance artist. He has participated in numerous international sculpture symposia: Dubrova – Labin, Reana del Rojale in Italy, Ravne na Koroškem, etc. He has travelled to Italy, France, England and the Netherlands for study purposes. He has completed several portraits of famous personalities in Croatia and several public memorials in Croatia, Italy, Austria and Slovenia. He is the recipient of the redemptory prize in the competition for the memorial dedicated to all victims of both wars in Opatija 1996, the Rijeka Municipal Award, and several other awards and prizes. As a member of the Sila-Kamenar- Bralić group, he participated in numerous urbanist and architectural projects, and he also worked as a set and costume designer for a few years in the Puppet Theatre in Rijeka. His work has been exhibited in more than a hundred group exhibitions at home and abroad. He lives and works in Rijeka, Croatia.
