MARC STRAUS

“Arguably one of the most poignant pictures to be exhibited at Zagreb’s Lauba gallery during the course of 2012 was Zlatan Vehabovic’s Departure, a triptych devoted to a pile of cardboard packing cases – as if someone is preparing to move out in the aftermath of a break-up. It certainly confirmed Vehabovic (born in Banja Luka in 1982) as the rising star of Croatian figurative painting. Vehabovic has spent the last few years producing narrative paintings that are both easy on the eye and wrong-footingly surreal.”