Igor Hofbauer is an illustrator, graphic designer, musician from Zagreb, Croatia. He was born in Zagreb in 1974. He studied at the Academy of fine arts in Zagreb for three years and afterwards he dedicated himself to designing and illustrating.
Igor Hofbauer is known among many fans of alternative music since he had a great impact on club scene’s visual identity. His most famous work are his posters and flayers for the club Močvara in Zagreb. He designed more than 100 posters for the club Močvara and other contractors in Europe and at least 20 CD covers for Croatian and foreign bands.
His work was also published in Art of Modern Rock, a book that offers a selection of the finest rock posters in the last 50 years (Paul Gruschkin and Dennis King, 2004).
His characters seem as they are coming from the science fiction movies from 50s and 60s; usually they are hairy creators, sharks, birds, sawn housewives, dancing skeletons… The environment of their tragic stories looks like a nightmare or one of Lynch’s movies.
In the last few years Igor started drawing comic books. His inspiration is his neighbourhood, Novi Zagreb, and the movies that touch him. Last year, his first comic book Prison Stories was released at publishing company from Zagreb, Otompotom and at the Portuguese publishing company Chili Com Carne.
During his residence in Studio Azil he started drawing his new comic book, which he is going to self-publish and will be released by the end of the year. The main scene takes place in Novi Zagreb and its characters are elder inhabitants living in block of flats. Lives of the elders, which he meets in the elevator or on the corridor, fire his imagination. He says that he is not interested in the topic of apathy and the real world but it is the world of dreams that fascinates him. In the world of dreams people and places known to us are completely different than in reality yet we can identify them without difficulties.
Besides the fact that he started drawing his new comic book, Igor also did some painting for Menza pri koritu during his residence. He painted a painting (size 2X2m), which illustrates club’s activities.
Watch an Interview with Igor Hofbauer by Ivo Poderžaj. Filmed and edited by Jasper Spoelstra.