Although I express myself now differently, with stronger contrasts, more chiaroscuro. I like, for example, the fragility of old paper, old books, newspaper, their smell, their color. And this preparation gives Zec's pictures an added dimension that is continually intriguing and fascinating to the eye. He has not, he says, tried to deal directly with the war in his homeland, but obliquely and symbolically, as he has always tackled the major themes that run through his art. Zec's figures, meanwhile, have become more anxious, more tortured, more poignant.
Arms reach upward as if grasping for something out of reach.
Strong, urgent, loving arms embrace another person - one whose arms are limp, the body slipping to the ground. Having been raised in a city where, Zec said, mosques, Orthodox and Catholic churches and synagogues were intermingled, where he had friends from every religious background and never encountered any hostility between the different groups, he is still clearly baffled and disillusioned by the disaster that overwhelmed the place. But he intends to return to Sarajevo. And he retains a passionate faith in the relevance of art and its power to give meaning to our lives and reveal the hidden beauties of an imperfect world.