The wall sits right between a police station and a school — a pretty interesting spot for this piece.
Big thank you to my neighbor Guillermo, who filmed a lot of the process and even invited me into his family apartment, where I got to see the biggest toy collection I’ve ever seen in my life. (You’ll see more of that in a YouTube video sometime soon!)
Wish I had a bit more time to refine some parts, but the past month or so has been quite rough. Still, I’m really happy I got to take part in this anniversary edition.
Mural painted for the 10th edition of ArtWalk Festival in Patras, Greece. This piece is a continuation of my Flea Market series, and it was largely improvised on the spot — the composition kept evolving as soon as I saw the wall I’d be painting. Thankfully, I always carry around one terabyte of reference photos I’ve taken over the last five years, so I had plenty of material to build a composition that fit the space. Big thanks to Artwalk for the invitation and for extending my stay so I could finish the mural as intended. The weather turned against me halfway through the process and washed away some of the earlier painted parts, but in the end, everything came together as planned. Also, a huge thank you to all the wonderful volunteers for the company and laughs along the way.
Before wrapping up and leaving each mural project, I like to take a small souvenir with me — I finger-pick the main colors used on the wall and make little color notes.
I wish I had started doing this 17 years ago, but hey, there’s still a good number of new projects ahead to make up for it.
Upcoming projects in Greece, Spain, Croatia, and more
Over the past year, I've had the privilege of traveling, painting, and capturing the process along the way. This video documents my first trip of 2024, taking you behind the scenes of the mural I painted for the DUK Festival in Čačak, Serbia.
In the video, I wanted to capture the scenery of the local flea market, as the mural's subject is the famous flea market in my hometown of Zagreb.
Filming my travels and mural projects has become essential to my process. It allows me to reflect on the work, the challenges, and the small moments that make each piece unique. Editing all the footage takes time, and, as they say, many of the cool shots end up on the cutting room floor. However, as I continue developing my filming and editing style, I might eventually create more extended versions of my travels and painting process.
I want to emphasize that my goal isn’t to become a YouTuber or anything like that. Painting large-scale murals is challenging enough, but having good process footage to look back on—especially editing it during the cold days—helps me stay in a creative mindset and motivates me to keep working.
Watch the full video here.
The mural titled "Browsing" features two scenes and marks a slight shift in my style and approach—something I had been eager to explore for some time and finally had the opportunity to do so. The first scene is inspired by the view you encounter every Sunday while walking toward Hrelić, where many people sell old items along the embankment that runs parallel to the market. In contrast, the second scene depicts items you might find while browsing. I sometimes buy things like this for drawings and small studies, just for fun.
While I’m happier with some parts than others, I’ve stopped viewing my work as a "finished product" and now see it as an opportunity to experiment and try something new each time.
I guess it took me a bit longer than I anticipated to write a new post about my projects and everything related to my art.
Balancing jobs/commission work and the projects I'm passionate about can be pretty challenging, as they all demand a significant amount of creative and physical energy and time. This year, however, I finally managed to get back on track, exploring new directions and themes in my personal work while also taking on some exciting projects on the commercial side.
Back in 2019, I started taking photos at my local flea market—mostly portrait shots that I later used for sketches and studies in my studio. I started blending a journalistic approach, using photo references of spontaneous scenes I’ve captured, with artistic compositions crafted in my studio, all within a representational figurative style, creating a dynamic contrast between documentary and creative expression.
For some reason, I’m fascinated by human expressions, faces, and poses, and the Hrelić flea market offers an incredible setting to capture them. There’s just something unique about Balkan features and the rawness in people's interactions.
Looking at my work up to 2020, I realized there was no unifying theme tying them together. Moving forward, my focus is to build a body of work with deeper personal meaning, exploring different variations of specific themes and styles.
"Figures"
Runaway Festival, Belgrade, Serbia
"Sentiment"
Street Arts Festival, Mostar, B&H
"Browsing"
DUK Festival, Čačak, Serbia
"Along the Embankment"
Grenoble Street Art Fest
Grenoble, France
For those interested in the commissioned projects I mentioned earlier, feel free to check out the Instagram profile WALLZ COLLECTIVE, where you can explore some of the recent murals realized in collaboration with partners.
I knew about most of the Mural Fest artworks before coming to Ferizaj, so I wasn't that interested in painting another character/figure. Seeing the murals from previous years in person, particularly the ones in the center of the town, pushed me to go in a different direction esthetically and in terms of narrative.
I believe it's easy to be "seduced" by some darker themes, and visually it can be much more fun to paint something moody and dramatic ( I admittedly lean more to that side). Still, the wall in the center of the town needed to go against that ( and I needed to go a bit against myself) and create a contrast to the war-themed artworks that were painted in previous years.
My idea was to paint something that at first looked more like decorative art, but I also needed to put some storytelling or a metaphor behind the work:
The Balkans have traditionally been an area of turmoil and political instability, thus the nickname "Powder keg."
Religion, particularly the divide between Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, and Catholicism, has played a significant role in that instability. This tendency of individuals to associate themselves strongly with a particular group or tribe based on shared religious or ideological beliefs makes them view opposing ideologies as a threat. That leads to hostility, the rejection of alternative viewpoints, and a lack of constructive dialogue. I kind of tackled this theme previously with the pothead characters.
By painting a still life in falling motion as a continuous pattern, with slight differences in details, I wanted to address both the beauty and instability and convey the idea of being more similar than different.
This idea is a good starting point for a more utopian place which was the theme of this year's edition."
Curated by @douggillen
Photographer Dren Osmani & @Sovran Nrecaj
I managed to film a lot during this project, so I may do a longer video/vlog this time with narration. As always, only some things go as planned or smoothly at this type of festivals.
I couldn't realize the piece as I had hoped because of a few problems with the wall, and the rain also didn't help. In this chaos, I started liking the unfinished look more and more and felt comfortable leaving it as it was.
In the future, I might do a few more still-life compositions just to try something different and see where it takes me.
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