Few young artists can boast works on display in cities around the world, and still claim to live largely hand-to-mouth. But Andrej Zikic, better known by his tag Artez, says this is the life of the street artist.
Without doubt the most active and commercially successful of Belgrade’s community of street artists, 30-year-old Artez’s murals adorn walls and buildings from Istanbul to Vienna, Sao Paolo to New Delhi.
But, he says, “It’s an unstable lifestyle.”
“You live day to day. Projects come up unexpectedly, and others fall through just when they seem most certain. This is definitely not a life for everyone.”
Generally classed as ‘visual art created in public locations’, street art seized its place as part of Belgrade’s cultural mainstream over the past few years.
Its chief practitioners are a close-knit yet stylistically varied group of urban young people, united by both a compulsion to create and a philosophy of non-attachment to their creations.
Artez’s experimentation with different styles and techniques led to his now internationally-recognised combination of photorealism and illustration, often incorporating elements of nature.
In 2013, he began a series of murals under the project title ‘Find Your Way to Fly’, a call to his audience to look inside themselves and find their true passion.
Artez’s murals adorn walls from Istanbul to Vienna, Sao Paolo to New Delhi. Photo: Courtesy of Artez
“I have found my passion, and now I’m working as hard as I can to make my dreams come true,” said Artez.
The murals depict the apparently impossible: a girl levitating on the wall of a cafe in Belgrade, a rooster flying tied to a tiny airplane in Bucharest, a man seemingly floating on air on a wall in New Delhi. And all over the walls of his hometown, the artist has painted simple roosters with the message “find your way to fly.”
Urban artwork tours
Last year, trying to raise the profile of Belgrade’s street art scene, Artez and another street artist, Nikola Mihajlovic, founded Street Up (streetuptours.com), offering tours of the city’s urban artwork, led by artists and taking in the murals of Dorcol, Savamala and Ciglana. They also offer workshops in the basics of street art.
“The best thing about being a street artist is that we’re like a big family,” said 32-year-old Mihajlovic, who mostly paints abstract themes. “We’re a small group, and we often work on projects and attend street art festivals together. We also meet many foreign artists at these festivals, and our doors are always open to each other.”
Mihajlovic, who has a degree in architecture, spent many years experimenting with various techniques, which led to both his growth as an artist and the formation of his unique abstract style. “I had a long black-and-white period, and several years during which I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing,” he said.
Now, “I mainly get commissioned for interiors: apartments and private places because my work isn’t really commercial.”
“There’s a lot more demand for Artez’s style than mine. I get fewer commissions, but I mostly get complete creative freedom when I’m given a project.”
The two have collaborated on a number of projects, while Mihajlovic’s solo work has taken him across Serbia, Europe and as far as India, where he was commissioned to paint an entire building.
“I would like to paint a mural in every city in the world. But if I had to choose, it would definitely be in New York and Tokyo,” he said.
A far cry from New York and Tokyo, another artist, 34-year-old Nenad Colic – better known as Harms – has chosen to paint murals in Belgrade’s abandoned factories.
“Belgrade has a lot of decrepit factories that are like museums,” he said. “All you need to do is make some installations from the rotting wooden desks and chairs that you find inside, paint lots of murals on the walls, and you have a complete large-scale artistic exhibition.”
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
