Marina Mesar, known internationally by her artist name Oko, is one of Croatia’s leading contemporary artists, working across painting, drawing, murals, installation and public interventions.
Her work combines surreal and symbolic imagery with elements of urban culture, mythology and personal memory, exploring themes of identity, human emotion and contemporary life through anthropomorphic and dreamlike visual worlds.
Oko’s work has been exhibited internationally in institutions and galleries including the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, e-flux in New York and the European Parliament in Brussels.
Her murals and public works have appeared across cities including Zagreb, London, Berlin, Toulouse, Turin and Tokyo, becoming a distinctive part of contemporary urban visual culture. She has also contributed to major public light and projection festivals in Zagreb and Berlin, creating immersive works exploring light, perception and human experience in public space.
Works including “Equilibrium” form part of the permanent collection of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, while “Don’t Follow the White Rabbit” is part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb.
Alongside her public and gallery work, Marina’s practice increasingly explores memory, imagination, identity and the emotional dimensions of contemporary life through drawing, textiles, photography and immersive installation. She lives and works between London and Zagreb.