Masters Expo.
Art by Tadej in Masters Gallery
In his portraits, Tadej brings legends, icons, and iconic brands or items to life with bright colors and edgy motifs. The American Pop Art movement in the 1950s is one of the artist’s major sources of inspiration. Tadej works out of his studio on Spuistraat in Amsterdam on various personal projects and on commissioned projects for worldwide campaigns for famous brands such as RayBan. In MASTERS GALLERY, Tadej discusses three of his works.
Online editing: Mical Joseph
Images: Art by Tadej
“I am extremely visually oriented, and I draw inspiration from everything that I see. That is why one of my key concepts is “the eye”. My visual language is expressed in bright colors and brush strokes. I always try in my work to bring personal characteristics to life with a twist of the imagination. The goal is to make my clients happy and to bring a smile to their faces. Being creative and artistic has been a part of me since childhood; it is in my genes. I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Ljubljana (Slovenia) and later in my studies explored more traditional graphic techniques, for example at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia. Not everyone in the Netherlands realizes it, but there is an incredible amount of attention to art here. It is actually Valhalla for me. Fortunately, my road led me to Amsterdam (with success), where I am now enjoying making use of not only older techniques, but also modern ones, and I like to mix them in my work.”
Diana
“I donated this work last year to the Gabrielle’s Angel Foundation in New York to raise money for cancer research. It was then purchased by someone in Abu Dhabi, who liked the work so much that he immediately also wanted a portrait of himself in my style. To do that, I always ask for a few different photos of someone as a reference, to get a good idea of the person. At that time in my career, I had not expected that someone would send my photos of themselves with Paris Hilton and Sarah Ferguson, but that is what happened.”
When 9 becomes one
“My work often focuses on portraits that I, to some degree, transform into one larger work, into a face. Last year, during the Amsterdam Dance Event next to Soho House, I had a big solo exhibition with DJ icons in Pop Art. That drew a great deal of attention, and various DJs also came to the exhibit. I will always be quite grateful to them for that because it has had an enormously positive impact on my career. The sad thing is that the music, dance, and events industry has been hit incredibly hard by all the coronavirus measures, and with this work, “When 9 Becomes One”, I want to show that although many people (in the music industry) are far removed from each other in reality right now, they can still be close to each other in a setting like this one. It is a great way to make one large work of art with separate portraits.”
Be Yourself RayBan
“Now major brands have discovered me, thanks to my colorful, striking designs. In part because they have a strong power of attraction. RayBan, for example, asked me early this year to work with the iconic Wayfarer model for the Time To Create campaign. This campaign started in the early days of Corona, focusing on the fact that we all have to rely more on ourselves. I was asked to give a creative twist to that. Below you see a Dalmatian daring to indulge his true self now that he is at home doing puzzles with RayBan Wayfarers. The recurring theme in my work is that we must not take ourselves too seriously all the time and should feel free to show more of our authentic selves. RayBan was extremely enthusiastic about the different designs and has used them worldwide in marketing campaigns, had face masks made with this design on them, among others, and has now also asked me to produce additional designs specifically for the Chinese market.”
