Who are we?
We are “Exer”, a group of Serbian contemporary artists and experts in design. As friends for many years, we share the idea that art should be a part of everyday life. Every aspect of our lives – the way we paint, sing, dance, dress, or cook – is the art we live and breathe. So we decided to create something together, and this idea is materialized in transferring our drawings, paintings, and objects onto T-shirts.
Our passion for disruption and desire for creativity is what we wish to embody in every single product we make.
Like the characters from our artworks, we all fight against our demons in our daily struggle to be a better version of ourselves. We strive for constant improvement, never surrender to the confinements of conformity, and maintain individuality.
We want our brand “Ekser” ([‘ɛksə] is the Serbian word for ‘a nail’) to represent the nail that breaks taboos and boundaries. We want to bring color to life and allow creativity to flow freely. We want our T-shirts to be conversation starters!
Be yourself, believe in yourself, and show everyone who you are.
Wear EXER and NAIL IT!
Katarina Gaborovic
I am a marketing veteran, with over 20 years’ experience with corporate advertising and brand building. I have overseen numerous award-winning campaigns, both locally and internationally and have been witness of our stories been told and our business grow. My whole professional carrier has been fueled by my passion for artistic beauty and attention to the very finest details.
But that is not the point of this story, the point is that I have decided to use that same passion for creating something new, something unique that embodies all that I stand for. My entire life experience made me able to recognize the extraordinary talents of the artists involved in this project, and the potential for the public to see and feel their art. This is why I launched this brand, and why I hope that all of you will share even a glimpse of my passion for the unconventional, for the raw and honest expression of our souls.
This is only but the beginning, I wish for this brand to be a launchpad for young and upcoming artists, to have a platform to make their art accessible, to show themselves to the world.
I hope you will be with us in this journey.
Zoran Velimanovic
Zoran Velimanovic is an artist based in Belgrade (Serbia).
He specializes in oil painting and sculpture in various media including metal, bones, wood, skin, hair and resin, but also living organisms. His three-dimensional works belong to what is today described as New sculpture and are very much in the spirit of Arte povera and Altermodern. Since the end of the 1990s, many of his major works have featured structures involving bones; their use originates from the artists’ fascination with archeology and organic remains.
Velimanovic’s personal art practice has led to him gaining a reputation as the art scene’s grotesque critic of a contemporary globalized society.
Frequently morbidly fascinating, Velimanovic seeks to highlight the incongruous nature of the world and the degenerate relations within it. His art confronts and disparages different social constructs which restrain, impede, infringe and even annihilate individuality. Substituting animals for people and combining human and animal bodies in order to get his point across, Velimanovic deals with issues such as human downfall, weakness and disgrace, hypocrisy, disgust, pain, fear and death.
Stevo Mandic
Stevo Mandic is a painter, illustrator and graphic designer based in Belgrade (Serbia).
His series of drawings “Update yourself daily” are records of everyday questions and searching for answers – who are we now, where are we going, is it really us, how to manage tomorrow, where, why, can we, are we afraid… The Alter Ego in his drawings is alive and kicking, it serves to provoke our “real” person. A battle that lasts forever and where the winner is always alternating, or there never is one.
Some of the stories he recorded as metaphorical drawings, some as short, purified thoughts. That is what he suggests to the reader as well – to visualize the stories by him-or herself, or to “read” the drawings in their own way, to add to it, to finish it. The drawing and thoughts are a diagnosis, and an observer can seek for the medicine in his-or herself each day. The best under sun!
Ivan Aran
Ivan Aran (Ivan Arandjelovic) is an art director based in Belgrade (Serbia).
He specializes in packaging design, graphic design, industrial design, furniture design, brand identity and strategy building. His portfolio consists of works, projects and studies in various segments of modern design, created for the largest global and local brands. He has received numerous national and international awards.
Aran has more than a decade of experience in the field of marketing, having worked as creative director in agencies McCann, Wireless Media, Method Advertising, Twins Advertising, as well as Time Out Magazine. At the moment of joining the Art Directors Club of Europe, he was its youngest member.