Eugen Varzić

Eugen Varzić graduated in painting from the Department of Fine Arts at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka (nowday’s Academy of Applied Arts) in 1999. He has shown his work at forty solo exhibitions and at more than a hundred collective at home and abroad. He has headed several artistic projects and worked on international visual art projects. He did further studies in art in Madrid, in the workshops of Eloy Morales and Antonio López Garcia. For a number of years he has taken part in benefit auctions of paintings. Occasionally he engages in design, short films, illustration and picture book making, running art workshops and tutoring future students of art academies. At the first TEDxPula conference in Istria he had a talk called Art as Breathing. A freelance artist, he lives and works in Istria, Croatia, EU.

I paint life. My focus has always been in figuration, realism. Every day is a new story, a new challenge a new fight. As a motif, I tend to choose people around me. Since the early days, I have been infatuated with the works of old masters and their skills and techniques.

When I look back, I realise that maybe I focused on realism because it was the closest solution to the idea of creating something different, something that others could not or would not. It was a way to challenge myself. I did spend a short while focusing on the technique and the processes behind creating the artwork rather than the art itself. I focus on the message, on the psychological, moral and ethical values I’d like to represent, on the internal struggles the models may carry in them. In these paintings, we get to see the process as it is, raw and unfiltered, unperfected. You get to learn a lot through one’s specific “handwriting”, which comes out during the painting process, the trail, I, as a painter leave with the brush, alongside a couple of accidents and messy strokes.

When I started working on it and thinking about it, I realised that it would be a “take no prisoner” working principle. I went to work and studied with the best in the world, made significant shifts and contacts. My sources and teachers are different from the environment in which I live and create. The feeling was fantastic and gave me the strength for even more and better things. And most importantly – it gave me the feeling that anything is possible.

I want to do something that is rarely done in art. Something that leaves the observer outside their comfort zone when standing in front of my art, and makes them ask if what they’re experiencing is in fact possible. This is where I try to survive and create. This idea is what keeps me going, although I have to admit, it is not easy. Almost every day I ask myself numerous questions, to which there is the only one answer: creation. This everyday ritual gives me a reason to live. A ritual of constant learning, changing, choosing the toughest path, constantly asking questions, with a clear head and faith.

For me painting is like a breathing.

My paintings are like painted diaries telling me when I was happy, when I was afraid, when I was painting hypnotically … when I was hungry. When I succeed I will be happy, not only for myself, but because I’ve shown those who believed that I would, and to those who doubted I can.

Cerova 8B, Kukci, Nova vas, Croatia

Tel. +385 52 456 184

Mob.+385 98 420 428

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