Born in 1951 in Yugoslavia, Milenko Prvacki graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from the Institute of Fine Arts in Bucharest, Romania. Prvacki moved to Singapore in 1992 and was the dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore from 2002 to 2011. A widely exhibited artist, he participated in group exhibitions at the Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen in Belgium, and the Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles in 2011. ‘Tropical Rain’ is part of a series Prvacki had developed during his days as a student, being inspired by the exotic places around the Adriatic Sea, such as islands and volcanoes that he would visit during the summer holidays. This painting, rendered with heavy brushwork, is an abstraction of the land and the natural environment. Moreover, since leaving his home country and moving to a foreign land, Prvacki has mooted the idea of mental islands – a safe space for thinking, where one is able to develop one’s own structures and thoughts.
