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.
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.
Finally, the new season of painting outdoors has arrived.
This is a cropped image of the first day's progress.
I'm trying a different approach this time by doing an underpainting and solving the light and shapes monochromatically first ( because I have more time than usual to finish).
The mural is organized by Pučko Otvoreno Učilište-Zabok, and the wall is on the building of the Regeneracija factory.
Mural painted at @xstaticfestival in Split, Croatia. Big thank you to the city of Split and to @senkzzzone for having me and for trusting me with such a big wall.
“Polupani Lončići”
In Croatian, that would mean something like smashed or broken pots.
This phrase would be used in our childhood game known as hide and seek. During the game, if you saw someone snitching, not counting correctly, calling out the wrong name, pretending to have not been seen and called out, simply cheating, or in other words, not playing by the rules, you or some of your playmates would have to yell "POLUPANI LONČIĆI"
The phrase would symbolize the end of the unfair or crooked game. It would also mean a reset, a new start for a fair and just game.
I also started filming and editing my own painting process, so here is my first ever "serious" video.
Subscribe to the channel for more future videos, from now on I'll try to do this for every project.
This is just half of the wall I started painting today at Lauba in Zagreb.
I've also started another wall with my buddy Chez at another location.
some other news:
A month ago, I got an invitation to take over the Paint Guide Instagram profile in June. I'll be posting daily about various artists that inspired me. Take over will last five days, as usual, posting several posts daily with lots of images and texts. This is a huge honor and a privilege I won't take for granted, so I'm already starting with preparations.
Last week I visited the city of Tomar in Portugal and painted a mural for "Com-Templ.-Arte" festival.
I'm not that happy with the work because I had the sun on the wall the whole day, and also not enough days to define some details ( hands, faces, cones).
I like the composition, repetition of the number 3, and the light, but maybe if the execution were a bit different, it would work better.
The whole work was a kind of improvisation in a way.
I wanted to try a few things, and I certainly plan to revisit the idea, maybe try out only with brushes.
Mural "Hat Wearers" and the process of making it are part of the overall project in MSU's Quest for Reality: Jadranka Fatur and hyperreality.
I wanted to create a collage of scenes by using photos made by my brother and me during our travels in the last year (or so). First, I started with the main wall, and when I had almost finished it, I decided to expand the scene to the rest of the walls.
One of the main things connecting all of the characters in the direction of the light, and of course, the hats.
The three main characters are painted with spray paint, while the rest of the mural is painted with brushes and acrylic. This was an excellent opportunity for me to try something different. I've never done so many characters in one piece and also haven't tried this color palette before.
For the first time, I filmed the whole process, and the footage was displayed on the media facade of the museum.
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