Djordje Ozbolt, "More paintings about poets and food"

Born in Belgrade (while it was still in Yugoslavia), Ozbolt has called London home since the 1990s. Since then, he's established a reputation for creating paintings and sculpture featuring generous helpings of the bizarre and macabre. His work is a surreal stew of styles (both Western and not), brimming art-historical and pop-cultural references, as well as his takes on traditional genres such as landscape, portraiture and still life. All of it is occasionally spiced with passages of abstraction. The results are apiece with the contemporary vogue for mix-and-match painting, but Ozbolt's panache and technical skills set him apart. An allegorist of his own imagination, Ozbolt knows how to grab your attention.