OKO is one of the best street artists in Croatia. Walking the streets of Zagreb you might stumble upon some of her work and we dare you not to be impressed. She uses techniques such as lino cut and etching to create anthropomorphic animals and eyes (‘oko’ stands for ‘an eye’), her trademark themes from the days she worked in a local skate shop where she painted skateboards.
Even though her work was noticed around the city and she has had a dozen exhibitions around he world, she herself never stepped into the media spotlight, mostly avoiding any interviews and photos. Last month that slightly changed, gaining great interest from the media as Severina, one of the most popular pop singers in the region, announced a collaboration on a performance with her in Lauba gallery. The performance of an underground street artist and a local pop queen sprouted a divided reaction from the cultural public but managed to get OKO’s work to a wider audience outside of Zagreb, including Severina’s, most of whom still look at street art as graffiti vandalism.
The underground and skate scenes, where almost everybody knows her by name, supported her efforts and paid no mind to criticism and praises of such a collaboration from the media.
OKO also does work with other techniques including ink, acrylic, pencil, markers, stickers…and outside her street art pieces, her work is not all that well known to Zagreb’s cultural circles. After a month has passed from her performance with Severina (it’s really hard to explain it, so we won’t even try) and the media ruckus has slowly simmered down, OKO will exhibit some of her less known works from The Lonely Walkers series of paintings at Vn gallery in Ilica street 163a.
Unlike her known black and white graphic animals, The Lonely Walkers take a different approach to life, full of colors and child like naivete. The exhibition opens on Thursday, July 9th at 20h.
