Balažević Ivan – All Desperate Artists

He was born in 1949 in Tavankut. He graduated in 1968 from GTŠC in Subotica, Department of Architecture. He graduated in ’97 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, in the class of Prof. Marijan Detoni. Since 1985, he has held the status of a freelance artist. He is a member of the Croatian Association of Freelance Artists, the Croatian Association of Fine Artists Rijeka branch, and the Association of Fine and Applied Artists of Croatia. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Laureate of significant awards (e.g., award for graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts student exhibition, award for tapestry in Kawasaki, Annual Award of HDLUR, City of Rijeka Award for contribution to the visual arts life of Rijeka, City of Novi Vinodolski Award for artistic contribution to the city, and many others). He lives and works in Novi Vinodolski.

“Painter Ivan Balažević has, in recent decades, defined his position in the contemporary Croatian scene. This position can be understood through the versatile artist’s interest realized in various visual techniques and media, and of course, through the aesthetic principles decidedly promoted in his authorial interpretation… And the true foundation of this creativity is recognized not only through numerous procedures and different visual means with which he paints the surface with a brush, or ‘draws’ it with his sharpened blade, or some other tool, skillful dripping, and spraying of paint… but in the cultivated exploration of this language in the context of postmodernist postulates, inscribing its possibilities as a password of his expression.” (Milan Bešlić)