Artists Rikardo Druškić
FALL 2024 RESIDENT · SEP – OCT
Rikardo Druškić
Painting, street art, animation · Sarajevo, Bosnia
Rikardo Druškić is a painter and street artist born in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1990, who has spent his adult life in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. A trained graphic designer, he works across painting, murals, drawing, digital art and animation. He joined Manchester AIR at The Factory on Willow in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the Fall 2024 session.
Background
Druškić’s interest in art began in high school with illustration and digital work. He went on to take part in the first Festival of Street Art in Sarajevo and the Mostar Street Art Festival, and in 2016 he painted a mural inside the Sarajevo Youth Theater, expanding his practice into public art. He has since created more than 300 works.
About the work
Druškić borrows the visual language of graffiti, with its free yet carefully planned lines, and carries it onto canvas, paper and screen. Critics have linked his flowing compositions to Kandinsky. His imagined worlds are filled with strange, unusual characters, and his satirical titles keep the rebellious spirit of street art alive. He has said that art should be accessible rather than elitist, and he values the recognition of his fellow Sarajevans above all.
One of his best-known public works began as a damaged World War II aircraft replica at the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Druškić proposed painting it, transforming an object tied to war into something bright and hopeful, and later showed it in the exhibition Was is Walter?, a nod to the classic Yugoslav film Walter Defends Sarajevo. His recent series Mundus Novus imagines a world where robots reshape human memory and culture. At Manchester AIR, he worked on his project XANTEA 2502 FUSION.
Selected highlights
Work shown in Times Square, New York, through the Platform for Contemporary Art
Finalist, Art Revolution Taipei (2014)
Winner, “Pure Abstraction” competition, Gallery 25N, New York (2014)
Suscitans Conscientia (Awakening of Consciousness), Sarajevo City Hall
Exhibitions in Sarajevo, Mostar, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Berlin, Brussels, Vienna and Taipei
