Rene Grgić - Đaković
Still Life with Books
2022
oil on canvas
30,5 x 23 cm
Phone with Oil Tube
2023
oil on canvas 15,2 x 20,3 cm
Rene Grgić-Đaković introduces us to his implicitly determined painting vocation. The meticulous approach evident in works Still Life with Books and Phone with Oil Tube is akin to Rembrandt’s ambience shading or perhaps the brush strokes of Frans Hals. These works are figuratively thorough, yet almost geometrically stylized and simple; each contains large colour surfaces, yet seems oddly dim; every motif is static, yet produces a sense of deferred momentum. It is this duality that Grgić wields in his compositions, ultimately catching us off guard – the serenity of a warm interior at first, followed by an uncanny stillness, as if a certain event is frozen in time.
Rene Grgić-Đaković (1986, Osijek, Croatia) received his MA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2011 and earned his MFA in Painting from the New York Academy of Art in 2023. In his work, he uses a realistic visual approach in figurative-style painting. Throughout his personal practice so far, his focus has been on the human figure, mostly in the domain of portrait painting. He now lives and works in New York as a freelance artist.
