Ernest Zacharevic: public interventions, collaboration and printmaking

Ernest Zacharevic is a Lithuanian-born artist based in Penang, Malaysia, whose practice brings painting into conversation with objects, architecture and public space. His work moves between street interventions, studio paintings, installations, sculpture and printmaking. That range is central to understanding his editions: a familiar image may connect several works without making the mural, canvas and printed sheet the same object.

Public space and the studio

Zacharevic studied printmaking at Vilnius Academy of Arts and fine art at Middlesex University in London. His murals for the 2012 George Town Festival became a defining part of his association with Penang. His official biography describes works that combine painting with found objects and respond to the social and visual character of their settings. The street is therefore more than a display surface in his practice; the surrounding place helps frame the encounter. Artist biography.

His environmental work extends that interest in context. Through Splash and Burn, which he founded, Zacharevic has worked with artists and NGOs on ecological concerns, including the consequences of palm-oil deforestation in Southeast Asia. Public intervention, collaboration and exhibition-making sit alongside the paintings and prints rather than forming separate identities.

Collaboration and an image’s changing life

The collaboration with photographer Martha Cooper offers a particularly clear view of how his practice develops an existing image. Their REPLAYNYC project returned subjects from Cooper’s photographs to New York streets in 2015. Lil Crazy Legs later connected that project to a painting shown in Lost & Found and a collaborative print edition. Cooper’s photograph, Zacharevic’s street rendition, the canvas and the print remain distinct stages with shared authorship and subject matter. Cultprint’s account of the collaboration.

For collectors, this history makes source-image credit and the work’s physical form equally important. Recognizing the subject does not establish which object is being offered. A catalogue should identify the edition or original while preserving the photographic and public-art history that gives the image its context. The same approach avoids treating a photograph of a mural as evidence of a particular print’s paper or finish.

Cultprint and collecting context

Zacharevic and Sheena Liam founded Cultprint in George Town in 2020. The studio’s account emphasizes artist involvement in printmaking; its expansion into a gallery and residency programme followed in 2024. Cultprint is consequently both a route to Zacharevic’s editions and a wider platform for other artists, exhibitions and collaboration. Its conservation and fundraising work also connects the studio to Splash and Burn and other environmental organizations. Cultprint’s history.

Across Zacharevic’s editions, individual hand-finishing can coexist with a numbered run, while a separately designated unique work has a different identity. That distinction matters more than the broad description “hand-finished.” His public projects, photographic collaborations and studio editions reward being considered together, with exact edition details retained on the relevant release page rather than used as a substitute for the artist’s wider practice.

Releases and further reading

Explore the 2024 restored George Town mural print collection. See the release histories for Ugly Duckling, UnHINged and Lil Crazy Legs. For current primary offers, visit Cultprint’s artist catalogue. Additional historical routes include Graffiti Prints and Underdogs.