Nik Markovina

One of the joys of the internet is rediscovering inspiration that you have either buried deep in your memories, or hidden in a box somewhere, only to be remembered and searched for on the web.

A few years back during our escapades around Australia and New Zealand, we visited the infamous Paddington Markets in Sydney, had some bizarre food and looked about the clothes and trinkets. Tucked away on one stall was some truly incredible artwork by a guy called Nik Markovina. To say the artwork is very Burton-esque would do it a disservice, because it is more than that – more than Gothic, more than satirical, but you get the very feeling of imaginative penetration that you rarely get from artwork these days. It was dark, it was inspiring, and peeled back the layers of my imagination with the precision of a brain surgeon.

It was one of Nik’s paintings that stirred me to write a childrens story (unpublished) called A World of Night, and should it ever find a publisher it would be fantastic to have Nik illustrate it.

The guy is, in my mind, a genius, and I’ve always lamented that I only bought a dozen of his print-cards rather than one of the canvasses (we were near the end of our six month travelling adventures and quite skint at that point!). I have Nik’s print cards hung in a nice frame over the desk now, watching over my writing-space, and sometimes just glancing up at the paintings is enough to prick my imagination, stirring up the boundless possibilities of the fanstastique.

Unfortunately it appears as though Nik’s presence on the net is limited to just a few of paintings on the DarkMagick site (which can be found here). So if anyone knows where Nik has moved to or what has happened with his paintings, I for one would be interested!


Postscript:
I've just found his site through another blog. Just click here to view...