Street art is having its moment in Zagreb. Alternative artworks are appearing like spores on buildings across the capital, and there's even an official Museum of Street Art - though you'll find its urban frescoes scattered around the city, not behind gallery gates. If Zagreb has a subculture, this is it.
Behind the street art revolution are a coterie of young, bold creatives. The most prolific, and internationally acclaimed, is an artist known as OKO (The Eye).
OKO is celebrated for her phantasmagorical murals: they're intricate illustrations on an industrial scale, and they have a certain way of getting the passer-by transfixed. A typical scene will depict woodland creatures with Victorian finery-clad human bodies - a sinister-looking fox in a top hat, or an owl in a suit. Whimsical and dark, these surreal scenes could as soon have been stolen from a child's nursery rhyme as an adult's nightmarish trip.
But OKO's reputation is going beyond the streets of the Croatian capital. Even the world's haughtiest art institutions are finding themselves intoxicated by the artist, with both London's Victoria & Albert Museum and the e-flux gallery in New York exhibiting her work.
If you're an art-lover en route to Zagreb, you really shouldn't leave without seeing OKO's unique murals for yourself. Here are all the places you can find them:
MSU - Museum of Contemporary Art
Student Centre
Ulica kneza Branimira
Masarykova
Ul. Andrije Kačića Miošića
Prilaz Gjure Deželića
