Draško Ivezić => HR
was born in Pula, Croatia, in 1975.
The Early Years
Draško started drawing comics, playing guitar and making video early in life, in the mid-1980s. His first video work was inspired by Monty Python and magic tricks. In 1987 he participated in the International School of Animated Film in Čakovec and produced a short film under the supervision of David Earlich.
Comics (1988-1998)
In 1988 he took part in the Grožnjan comic strip workshop, led by Julije Radilović, Radovan Devlić and Igor Kordej, the eminent comic authors at the time. There Draško drew his first serious comics. In 1993 Draško attended a comic strip workshop organized by Krešimir Zimonić, editor of the influential Croatian comic magazine Patak. Under Zimonić’s influence, Draško produced his high school graduation thesis on the European art comic. In the following years, he continued working with Zimonić as his assistant in workshops. During that time, Draško met several talented and creative young authors and decided to organize a more focused workshop. This resulted in the two week long comic strip workshop that took place in Pula in 1995 when their first zine was produced. The same group took the name Variete Radikale, and started publishing a zine under the same title. The zine, started, edited and designed by D.I., received the award for innovation in comics at the Comic strip revue (Salon stripa) in Vinkovci in 1997.
The Stage & RnR (1992-?)
From 1990 to 1993 Draško worked as an actor and director in the famous Croatian amateur theater Inat in Pula. His first experience as a director was a dramatization of Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. In 1992 Draško sings, authors songs and plays guitar in the band The Humps. The band played in Pula, Kopar and Rijeka before splitting after a year.
From 1993 to 1995 Draško is active in the Creative Exploratory Team in Pula. Under the supervision of local high school teachers, psychologists and artists, the association Grm is formed. Grm soon becomes on of the most prolific producers of music and amateur theater in Pula. As one of the initiators of the project, Draško organizes and directs a series of events, from comical sketches to open air shows in the spirit of popular street theater. Most shows were inspired by current media and political events. This period culminated in the musical comedy Torpedo, which was performed 30 times, an unusually high number for Pula’s theater scene.
In 1997 Draško takes part in the new radio show Sanatorium of Dr. Schwantz on Zagreb’s influential Radio 101. During that time, the group that was the creative core of the show starts working together more regularly and produces scripts, songs and stories. This group, including Draško, left the show after a break up with the editors (the show is still on air).
In 1998 the same group produces the theater performance Headmaster’s Departure, a psychedelic Dadaist political satire. The production team that was created during the Radio 101 period is now further creatively strengthened and conceptually defined. The group constantly changes names through “anti-branding,” parodying that way the omnipresent marketing/branding phenomena that mark Croatia’s transition to capitalism. The groups changed a dozen names and performed under aliases such as Uran Uran, Posorište narodnog heroja Majkl Đekson Mikija, Boy George Michael Jackson Five, Pacijenti Dr-a Zdravkoviča, etc. The same group is an important part of the Festival of Alternative Theatrical Expression (FAKI) that is organized yearly by Zagreb’s Autonomus Culture Factory (ATTACK). A well-received show on FAKI was The Coronation of King Tomislav. The group’s most successful event was the closing of FAKI in 2003, when an all-night parody of Eurosong took place. The group organized the event technically and creatively and performed in it, while close to 50 people participated in the production of the show.
Currently, Draško is working on a new project that will mix video, theater, political satire and music.
Academy of Fine Arts, animation and the new media (1994-?)
D.I. graduated in Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. The focus of his interest was Ladislav Galeta’s course on new media. There, Draško discovered experimental film and rediscovered animation while working under the supervision of Nicole Hewit. In 1999 at the Academy he produced the multimedia project The Drava Man, which included slides, film and sounds of swamps around river Drava. The movie was shown in the Art Workshop Lazareti in Dubrovnik.
For The Coronation of King Tomislav, Draško made videos that combined animation and special effects. At the same time, he started working with the activist video center Fade In, where he post-produced several experimental films, videos and TV coverage.
After graduating in 2001, Draško works in Zagreb Film as a director in the omnibus animation Kamov. There he combined stop animation, cell animation and acted as post-producer. At the time Draško also authored the animated ad for the Pula Bookfair, worked as an animator, and the did various jobs on RTL TV, from editing, post-production, to design. In 2004 he worked (mostly on TV ads) for a production studio as an animator and picture compositor. In 2005 he made the title sequence for the documentary Kad Miki kaže da se boji and enrolled in the Film and Video Design program at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He also worked on an independent animated short, Krsnica, which was presented at the Ars Attack group exhibition in Pula in 2005, but had to be abandoned because of a lack of funds.
From 2004 Draško had contributed to the Croatian weekly Feral Tribune, writing on on animation and conducting several interviews with renowned animators.
Currently, Draško is the assistant to the art director of the Festival of Animated film in Zagreb. There he is editing the festival bulletin and working on a promotional animated film for the Festival.
Graphic Design (2003-?)
For financial reasons Draško returned to graphic design in 2003. First he worked in the Andrija Stampar School of Public Health as a conscientious objector, where for 10 months he designed books, flyers, web sites, etc. From 2006 to present Draško has been working for Sizis design studio as a graphic designer. His latest work that attracted public attention was the visual identity and printed promotional materials for the Zagreb Musical Biennale 2007.