BORA SITAR – “Make art every single day.”

🔉 Listen to Audio Excerpt:

You are originally from Slovakia. How old were you when you emigrated?

I was 24 when the Iron Curtain went down, and I left for Vienna and Germany and then the US. I still have a beloved home in Prague and live on both continents.

Were you there under communist rule? Yes? Okay. How did growing up in a communist country influence you as an artist?

It has everything to do with me being an artist. I was a very solitary only child. I come from a family persecuted by the regime at the time. My father was a political prisoner; my mother was an artist, and so was my grandmother. I grew up in this marvelous garden that my grandfather, a botanist, built, sheltered from the world outside. I knew every plant and insect and would frequently speak to them. Our extensive library was an incredible source of imagination. As a result, the world became a wonder. A wonder that I kept to myself and have carried throughout my life and into my art.

Do you recall one childhood memory that now looking back you can say, yeah, there was an artistic side of me back then?

I started to draw very early on when I was about three or four years old. My recent body of work are large paintings of my first drawings. I am returning to where I started. Deep in me, I can recall that state of Being before knowing. The memory is that deep presence of everything pulsing with life at the tips of my fingers and through my retina.

“My vision constantly changes.”

Overall, how do you think your vision as an artist has changed over the decades?

My vision constantly changes. It is a gravitational pull to find a way back to myself to that very moment when I was conscious, but I didn’t know yet, just pure intuition and curiosity. That is my vision at the root of my art and art teaching.

In addition to being an artist, you’ve been a gallery curator and director, has one area influenced the other?

I would say unfortunately so, because I became an art historian and art critic before becoming an artist. My education just evolved that way.

How does it block things for you?

Curse of knowledge. It causes harsh self-criticism.. Constant doubt can fuel art in the right way but can and does often paralyze me. I am constantly aligning myself with the intuition out of which creative thought or impulse is looking for its up-cycled ways to manifest. I respect that Leonardo always felt that he was offending God. All has been done already, and better. Just not yet from my point of view at this moment in time.

So basically, imposter syndrome?

I don’t feel that way. The ever-present doubt keeps me open, unsatisfied, and curious. It protects my sense of wonder from the numbing voice of reason.

What do you find to be the biggest challenge of being a self-reliant artist?

Art behaves just like any other product of illusionary nature on the market. Quality and price are artificially determined. The market forces the artist to please a buyer. It causes an internal rupture of the soul’s raw, genuine, honest endeavor. Many artists find other ways to support their art and be free and uncompromising.

The past four years have been extremely challenging for artists and solopreneurs. Does that period influence what you do today in any way?

The solitude and isolation of pandemic worked in favor of my art. I painted, travelled throughout Europe and photographed empty airports and cities and found more peace. So yeah, it was a lesson in acceptance.

You work with several different formats, photography, glass painting, clay, wood, leather. Which of these would you say that you are most passionate about and why?

I was always ready to learn to make everything myself. It was a survival prep attitude when I was little. I’m a quick learner and I’m very passionate about extraordinary human tools that our hands are. Therefore my hands are fluent in many different art mediums. The insistant new idea. That’s what I’m most passionate about. I am always looking for a suitable medium for the idea. Not the other way around.

If you were to look back at your career now as an artist, do you have one thing you might do differently?

In my imaginary past I would of been more selective and daring. But I was too traumatized, anxious and disoriented when I was younger.

I always had this ridiculously heightened sense of smell. It is surreal gift. I wish I had created a sensual, awkward perfume brand with odd perfumes and crafted glass vessels for those perfumes, with a poem for each. I would be so comfortable in such a niche and bizarre endeavor.

Do you see there being any need for artificial intelligence when it comes to art in general?

There is no need for AI in art. AI is art. AI manifests the evolution of us. It might end us. Yet, it is the fascinating organic transformation of our perception of ourselves. Invitation to reality in which time and space are not fundamental.

We are just fiercely holding on to physical art done by hand, and we should. I am aware of being among the last analog generations to enjoy the tremendous thrill and fascination of raw human analog creativity. We are already vintage as we speak.

You can find all of Bora’s work HERE.

Get Wicked Business Delivered

Make sure you don’t miss the next interview. You never know; it could be the inspiration you need that day.

Leave your details below, and I’ll let you know when the next interview is available.

Related interviews

Up Close portrait of woman on off-white background.

Episode 10 – Jayme Parker, Creator, Executive Producer & Host of “Outside the Fame” on NESN

Jayme Parker’s first assignment at NESN was a Celtics game, and Red Auerbach wasn’t letting her into the locker room. He asked where she thought she was going; she said

Up-Close Portrait of woman holding a bronze medal.

Episode 9 – Anna Johannes – 5-Time Parapan American Swimming Gold Medalist, Bronze Medalist Swimming 2012 London Paralympics.

Anna Johannes was born without her left hand and forearm in Kyrgyzstan and adopted at two. She grew up the only disabled swimmer in Northern Virginia. She went on to

Up close portrait of male on off-white background.

Episode 8 – Todd Angilly – Boston Bruins National Anthem Singer

Most people know Todd Angilly as the guy who sings the anthem at the Garden and points at the Bruins bench when he’s done. I wanted to know how a