(No. 3) The Great Wave of Banja Luka


View position of The Great Wave of Banja Luka in a larger map

I was invited as a guest artist @ International Meeting of “Youth Centers & Urban Culture 2013”, Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to do the Great Wave of Banja Luka on the wall of the Primary School „Borisav Stanković”.

I was very lucky to have an assistant, a seventh grader, class 3,  Saša Dubravac, to help me out with the first layer of color, because the spring sun was burning constantly and I was very strained after transferring the original Hokusai´s drawing. But when it came to the point of pure painting it was very ecstatic experience; the wall surface brought out its own individual qualities, craquelures and roughness that reminded me of Van Gogh´s affection for crêpe like qualities in Ukiyo-e prints. That´s why I treated the sky surface with much dimmer or washed out color effect.

Related post: The Great Wave of Banja Luka, A Reflection

Technique: acrylic based wall paint on concrete wall

Size: 210 x 294 cm (82.67 x 115.74 inch)

Year: April 2013

Availability: Public/Street art


100 Great Waves
Feb 21, 2013

In 2009 we were lucky to have Mr. Adachi from Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints with Mr. Kyoso as a Japanese traditional woodblock print demonstrator to demonstrate and introduce this technique at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sarajevo. After demonstration I had an opportunity to show Mr. Adachi the photos of my works from 100 Views of Ukiyo-e. When he saw The Great Wave off Kanagawa, he asked me, How many copies did you do? I said, I did only one, as I was aiming to give one original painting to multicopy print. He said, No, You should do 100 copies. At first, the idea of doing 100 paintings of the Great Wave sounded impossible and ridiculous, but in time I realized, I don’t have to do it on canvas, I can do it on walls, it´s nothing new and it´s not the first time someone did it, and yet it becomes a public good unlike painting on canvas that is always private. So I´ve decided whenever I have a chance, to do the Great Wave on walls on each city that invites me to do it.


2018 – Update for the concept 100 Great Waves

As of 2018 I am no longer considering this project to be street art or public only, as this limits my experimental aspect of this series. Therefore my future works will include commissioned art works and indoor murals with private, semi-private and public access.