The artist born in Croatia (09.09.1962) spent his first years in Vitez (Bosnia). The city of Vitez –which means knight in southern Slavic- is located in central Bosnia and has been scene of cruel fights during the centuries like in the latest war of Bosnia . At the age of 10 he and his parents emigrated to Austria. Since then he lives in Laab im Walde, a tiny quaint village at the outskirts of Vienna. 

Vinko Debeljak completed an apprenticeship as a car-varnisher. But soon he found out varnishing cars not to be his vocation so that he turned his back to his job in order to dedicate himself to experimental painting. 

The artist describes  the development of a work as “a jump into nothingness with the following effort to save oneself”. To give nothingness a harmonic colouring, equilibrium between dream and reality and to create a painting of rich content is his vocation. The artist connects realism and surrealism into a unique combination.

To Vinko Debeljak a work is only finished when it has sufficient energy and when he feels that it is “the heart laughs” and not the head.