Comic art by Branko Djukic.
Branko Djukic (Branko Đukić) is a Serbian academic painter, comic artist, illustrator and art theorist. His paintings have been exhibited throughout Serbia, and his comic pages and illustrations have appeared in magazines like Nin, Intervju and Stav, as well comic fanzines. An important player in his hometown Zrenjanin, he has been an art teacher at several schools, the initiator of the local comic festival and accompanying anthology, Stripolis.
Early life and education
Branko Djukic was born in 1966 in the city of Zrenjanin in northern Serbia (then still Yugoslavia). While still a high school student, he published his first drawings in the youth press. Since 1992, Djukic has exhibited his paintings in both group and solo shows in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kikinda and Zrenjanin, and he has been awarded early on at the Biennial of Student Drawing and Student Graphics of Yugoslavia.
In 1995, he graduated from the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, where the painter Jovan Rakidžić had been one of his teachers. Between 1999 and 2004, he did his post-graduate studies at the Faculty of Arts in Belgrade under the mentorship of Slobodan Roksandić. Growing up in Former Yugoslavia, Djukic was not satisfied with how art school introduced him to the world of art. In a time when socialism was the norm, his teachers were constantly comparing and ranking art subjects. Instead, he found inspiration for visual culture and fine art through pop culture, including comic books.
Academic painter
Djukic has been a member of ULUS (the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia) since 1997, and the ULUPUDS (Association of Fine Artists of Applied Arts and Designers of Serbia) since 2005. In 2010, he was a founding member of the USUS, the Serbian Comic Artists Association. In his hometown Zrenjanin, Djukic has taught art at the Nikola Tesla Art School and the Jovan Trajković School of Economics and Trade. Later on, he was also employed by the Bogdan Šuput High School of Design in Novi Sad. Over the years, he has also been involved in several humanitarian projects of the Zrenjanin-based UM-ING company (Umićević Engineering), including its local painting colony.
Comic art by Branko Djukic.
Stripolis
In addition to his work in fine arts and teaching, Djukic has also worked as a comic artist and illustrator. He has worked regularly for the weekly Belgrade newspaper NIN, and his comics and illustrations have also appeared in seminal magazines like Intervju and Stav, as well comic fanzines like Slic and Zr-Strip. Since comics were an important part of his artistic upbringing, Djukic has been a driving force in the Zrenjanin comic scene. A visit to the first Yugoslav Comics Festival in Vinkovci in 1984 planted the seed for establishing a similar event in his hometown.
Together with the local Cultural Center, he initiated the Stripolis comic festival, first organized in 2009. Held every year from Thursday to Saturday during the third week of September, the festival offers exhibitions, workshops, movie screenings and panel talks, and has welcomed renowned Serbian comic authors like Zoran Janjetov, Željko Pahek, Branislav Kerac and Darko Perović as guests. In May, Stripolis has often organized digital Skype events with international special guests, including Derf Backderf (2014) and Bastien Vivès (2015).
In addition to the festival, Djukic also initiated the annual comic anthology 'Stripolis', which has printed work by local comic artists, national creators and international guests. One of the missions of Stripolis has been to bring generations together, through publishing comics by, articles about and interviews with both established Serbian creators with international careers and a new generation of comic artists. The initiatives of Branko Djukic have been instrumental in the careers of several Zrenjanin comic creators.
Part of a diary comic, published on Facebook on 14 June 2024.
Style
As a fine artist, Branko Djukic has constantly explored different directions, which sometimes has led him to the poetry of comics. He takes his inspiration from whatever comes his way. In a 2015 interview with Vreme.com, Djukic explained: "I listen to Wishbone Ash and then I draw a series of drawings that are dedicated to knights. I hear some nonsensical information on TV and turn it into an even crazier drawing. It happened to me that I hear some folk hit in the supermarket, so I can't wait to get home and embody it in my own way. I allow all possible forces to act on me. There is nothing anymore that cannot be made into art." On Facebook, he has regularly posted his "drawing-quotes", a series of intentionally unfinished comic-style sketches, inspired by photos he found in magazines or on the web.
Branko Djukic in 2015. Photo: Goran Mihajlov.