Marko Ristić (b. 1993, Daytona Beach, Florida) is a first-generation American painter based in New York. Raised on Long Island in a Serbian immigrant household, his upbringing was shaped by a dual cultural identity, balancing American life with deep ties to Serbian tradition, religion, and family history. This coexistence of influences forms the foundation of his artistic voice, which emerges from overlap rather than opposition.
Ristić comes from a lineage grounded in visual and material practice. His father, an architect working extensively with wood and design, introduced him early to structural thinking and craftsmanship, teaching him foundational skills including canvas stretching, surface preparation, and frame construction. His sister, Kristina Ristić, is a painter based in Belgrade, and his grandfather was a cinematographer in the Yugoslav People's Army, further embedding image-making within his familial history.
His path to painting was self-directed. Between the ages of nineteen and twenty-seven, Ristić worked as a male model before turning fully toward painting at twenty-seven. He approaches painting as a grounding, introspective practice, often likening it to journaling-each canvas functioning as a record of a moment, emotion, or internal state.
Working primarily in oil on large-scale canvases, Ristić's paintings exist between figuration and abstraction. His brushwork is physical and expressive, with forms that fragment, dissolve, or emerge through gesture rather than illusionistic depth. Emotional resonance takes precedence over representation. A recurring concept in his practice is chaos, understood both as subject and material. His work explores tensions between love and destruction, presence and disintegration, turbulence and calm.
Ristić lives and works in the same space, emphasizing the difficulty of maintaining psychological boundaries between daily life and artistic practice. His Manhattan loft alternates between order and disorder, reflecting the internal states that inform his work. He maintains daily rituals-exercise, coffee, and reading-as stabilizing elements within his routine. He avoids fixed titles and definitive interpretations, believing his work should remain open-ended and resistant to closure.
His Serbian heritage remains integral to his visual language, drawing on Slavic endurance, Orthodox iconography, and the emotional weight of cultural tradition. He views America as both a site of opportunity and illusion, with his work challenging nostalgia in favor of lived experience.
Soon after committing to painting, Ristić began attracting gallery attention. A pivotal moment came with his solo exhibition A Violent Display of Affection at ALLGORITHIM in West Hollywood. The exhibition presented large-scale figurative paintings and marked a defining moment in his early career. His hands-on approach was evident during installation, where he repeatedly re-stretched canvases to meet his exacting standards.
Since then, his work has been featured in art and design publications, including a profile of his New York loft in Vogue Living. Known for his disciplined and introspective nature, Ristić prioritizes process and persistence over recognition. Alongside painting, he works with analog photography, continuing to explore form, emotion, and the evolving relationship between chaos and control.
Ristić aspires to exhibit in New York, Belgrade, and internationally, sustaining a life fully supported by painting and long-term, process-driven practice.