Pop culture – Street Art: Murals
Street Art is an artistic movement that stems from the graffiti art scene of New York in the seventies and eighties of the 20th century. Artists like Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf in the USA or Blek Le Rat, Harald Naegeli and Hugo Kaagman in Europe were the forerunners of the explosion of street art that occurred after the year 2000. The media and the public called this movement Street Art, and the streets of London, Paris, New York, Madrid or Berlin received street interventions in the form of sculptures, stickers, painted fronts of the buildings or “decorated” mailboxes. Artists like Banksy, Shepard Fairey or Space Invader are top world street artists today, whereas in Croatia we have to mention the most important ones such as Slaven Kosanović LUNAR, Boris Bare, Marina Mesar OKO, Tea Jurišić, Chez186 & Sarme and Grupa ZID.
Tea Jurišić, Ploče – KITESURFER
The most famous Croatian muralist Tea Jurišić painted a mural called Kitesurfer in Ploče in 2023.
The mural exudes the colors of local nature, and the motifs chosen by the artist connect everything essential to the Neretva delta, the emerald river, tangerines and kitesurfing, a sport that is becoming increasingly popular among young people as well as tourists who come to this part of Croatia. This mural is part of a large production by the Graffiti na gradele collective, of which Tea is a member. The Graffiti na gradele collective is not only a group of people who paint, but they also organize the eponymous festival, art workshops and various art events.
The artist Tea Jurišić was born in 1991 in Munich. After finishing the High School of Fine Arts in Split, she continued her education at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Graphic Arts Department. She graduated in 2017 with a cum laude distinction for her thesis. From 2017 to 2019, she was an assistant at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek. Her specialty is illustration, visual design, posters and all forms of applied graphic art. She draws, paints and illustrates mainly in watercolor and ink on paper. She exhibited at a dozen independent and several group exhibitions in the country and abroad. She participated in several art residencies and street art festivals in Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Norway and Greece.
Melinda Šefčić, Sisak – ARIES
Academic painter and street artist Melinda Šefčić painted the facade of a building in Sisak at Ulica Hrvatskog narodnog preporoda 10 as part of the Re-Think festival held in 2018. The artist’s work on the front of the building in Sisak shows the symbol of Aries, which in its color variant reminds us of the constellation from Ptolemy’s catalog, while the created black and white background of flowers symbolizes the universe along with the infinity and beauty of the murals that have been created in Sisak in recent years through the very successful organization of such Street Art festivals. The mural was painted in the artist’s manner, which we all recognize from the countless projects of painting and ennobling public spaces that we had the opportunity to see over many years of her work.
Melinda Šefčić, D. Arts was born in 1986. In 2006, she entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, majoring in painting, and in 2012 she graduated from the graduate study of painting in the class of the full-time professor Zoltan Novak. In May 2018, she received her doctorate in painting studies at the Academy of Fine Arts (ALU) in Zagreb in the art-scientific field on the topic of “Rehumanization and Re-Aestheticization of the Hospital Space – an Example of the Artistic Solution of a Hospital Ward”, under the mentorship of the full-time art professor Svjetlana Junaković and full-time professor Vera Turković, PhD. She exhibited at numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Croatia and around the world: Italy, Portugal, Greece, Serbia, Macedonia, India, Poland, Germany, France and the USA.
Tomislav Lončarić LONAC, Split – HYPOCRITE
Academic painter and street artist Tomislav Lončarić LONAC painted the facade of the Spaladium Arena in Split in 2021 as part of one of the most important and longest-running graffiti and street art festivals in the Republic of Croatia – the xSTatic Festival. The mural called Hypocrite is one of the largest that LONAC has done, and the motif of the pot (Croat. Lonac) used by the artist permeates all of the artist’s works. The artist took the catchphrase “Polupani lončići” (“Broken pots”, something along the lines of “Olly Olly Oxen Free”) from a childhood game, which obviously left too deep a significance in the artist’s life, as the artist himself says: “In my works on this topic, I try to illustrate through the eyes of children the world of adults, the world of tribes/groups and the culture of calling each other out rather than engaging in self-reflection.”
Lonac’s mural is precisely the artistic counterbalance to the endless murals that paint Split and which the city under the Marjan hill was so lacking.
Tomislav Lončarić “Lonac” (1987, Zagreb). After graduating from the Zagreb High School of Arts, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb – Teaching major. He graduated in the class of prof. Ines Krasić in 2013. He painted and exhibited in Croatia, Great Britain, Italy, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, UAE, Republic of North Macedonia, South Korea, USA and China.
He has been a member of the P_3 platform since 2013, and a member of Croatian Society of Fine Artists since 2016.
Thiago Mazza, Vukovar – IRISES
Street artist Thiago Mazza came to us from Brazil, and he left his mark on the buildings of Croatia in Vukovar in 2019 as part of the VukovART festival. His work reflects the beautiful and rich nature of Croatia, which he paid tribute to in his mural called “Irises”. As the author himself says in one of the interviews: “In the composition of this mural, I used the style of leaves that follow the aesthetics of the plants I found there, as well as the flowers of the iris, which is considered one of the most beautiful flowers in the world, and which, since 2000, has been considered a national flower of Croatia. With this work, I found a way to honor Croatian nature.”
Thiago Mazza was born in 1984 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. He graduated in graphic design from the State University of Minas Gerais. Self-taught in painting, he had his first contact with graffiti in 2010 and he has been painting walls ever since. Thiago is one of the representatives of Brazilian contemporary muralism and has participated in urban art festivals such as UpFest (Great Britain), Stenograffia (Russia), IPAF (México) and CURA (Brazil).
His work communicates with classical painting, street art and contemporary art. Thiago Mazza brings to his art the nature that is within him, the ingenuity to transform it and the art to bring us into it.
Krešimir Golubić, publicist
