Goran Petrac was born in Ludbreg in 1961. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb under professor Vasilije Jordan in 1985
For exemplary studies he was awarded the Academy of Fine Arts. That same year Petrac participated in the first joint exhibition of graduates, thus starting his professional life. He held his first solo exhibition in 1988 at the Gallery Koprivnica, in which the coloristic structure and colors are converted figural composition in a poetic vision of the world.
In Petrac's paintings we see several thematic cycles in design and content, as well as problems which he systematically resolves, giving them richness and persuasiveness. With the first cycle of paintings "Covers", between 1987-1990, Petrac is clearly defined within Croatian modern art as continuing orinickog painting, presenting its high level of painting skills in the figures, covers and metaphysical space of his painting.
In 1990 the painting cycle "Pools" in tempera and gouache were shown in Gallery “Dubrava” in Zagreb. The spaces in the pictures were metaphysical, reduced figures, but with clear proportions. In 1992, he painted a series, which investigated Jeri and ornamental old Croatian heritage as an influence on the theme and structure of thepictures.
The cycle called, "The characters of wattle" were shown in many of the important galleries in Croatia.
The cycle of paintings, "The landscape and the country" were created in 1997. It he expresses the refined specific characteristics of the landscape and their morphology, as well as sensitivity to the metaphysical system in which the images were taken.
In 1995 and 1996 Petrac does a large painting project mosaic Stations of the Cross and shrines of the Precious Blood of Jesus in Ludbreg.
Mosaics cover the large painted surface of the Stations of the Cross, set out in the confessionals in the broad area of the shrine in front of the chapel with the imposing mosaic of Christ's Resurrection. In this work, Petrac confirms his artistic maturity, which alternates the dramatic and lyrical intonation and contemporary sacred paintings in Croatia.
Petrac’s religious works focus for the most part on the theme of the Calvary. He is interested in other Christian iconography, too, such as the Last Supper, Resurrection and the Four Riders of the Apocalypse, painted as separate easel paintings. The cadence of the drama showing the Fourteen Stations of the Cross is recurring theme. The most astonishing series, from 1995, is placed in the Ludbreg landscape – in a small chapels of the Eucharist pilgrimage destinations of the Precious Blood od Christ. Stylised, mosaic like shapes in light colours are pictorially
In 1998 he moved back to Ludbreg, which marks the construction of the workshop on landscapes and panoramas depicting fields, ears of corn, grass, Sasa and the roadside. In Ludbreg between 2001-2003, he generated a cycle called "Rezek," inspired by a tree that grows in the neighboring Gorički valley.
There is also a landscape cycle named „Rezek“ which shows a variety in the treatment of the dynamics of masses. The motifs include fields with a raised horizon ending in wheat „feathers“, tiny villages punctuated with church steeples, diagonally ploughed fields, openings in the verticals of the ears of wheat, paths and rails penetrating the breadths of fields and “projecting” in exact perspective. Some patterns in these landscape compositions are irreverently deaf to general compositional norms in their proportions. Agricultural fields are organisms that breathe with noisy color and thickly applied impasto. Fields are organic structures imbued with hidden material energy.
For several years he worked on the portrayal of wood. Preparing himself for a new cycle of exhibitions he started using more expressive colours.
Another sign commonly present in the paintings knows as the “Rezek” cycle is the tree canopy, Petrac’s dominating leitmotif in the course of five or six years of his work. Trees with their bare branches and knots are rendered without attempting to show the massive trunk. Perforations in the canopy open up rosettes of landscape, enriching with colour the sculptural presence of the tree.
Petrac divides the background of the picture into two vans with colour. The spiral intertwining of the colour values is always an intriguing sensation. The outlines of the interior canopy shapes differ in appearance and size; hot chromatic choices and they interactions provoke the experience of drama and lyricism. In his treatment of the tree form (which may also be a hill or a rock), rigid and rough but softened by lights, Petrac asserted his imaginativeness, through freshness of variation that never shows fatigue. In 2007, characteristic of the paintings is a sense of less eruptive nudity with pictures done in a lighter palette; The figures with large, oversized derrieres are mostly viewed from the back.
„Metamorphoses“ is a group of paintings closely linked to the „Rezek“ style. Their key feature is the constructive grid of the tree trunk enriched with figurative elements of associative charge. Petrac works with the forms of the grown branches and their distribution, transforming their physically into nude figures, into embraces, with occasional careful description of real forms and sometimes with no more than a mere suggestion of form. Smudges and intertwined lines help to structure the figurative in the vegetation, lending the stately ans attractive trees of north western Croatia a fairy tale magic. In some way „Metamorphoses“ corrsepond to the artist's early figurative subject matter that was dominated by surreal imaginativeness.
The year 2005 is the twentieth anniversary of the painter's work. In twenty years of the painter painters work, he had 46 solo exhibitions and participated in several important juried group exhibitions at home and abroad. On the occasion of Petrac's twentieth anniversary for his work and artistic achievements in painting, he was awarded the Plaque of Ludbreg.
In 2006 he produced and set a five meter monument to the fallen soldiers of the Homeland War in Ludbreg.
The new cycle of landscape paintings took place between in 20042008, singling out the theme of old and gnarled trees. Playing with associated scenes, the tree and its branches become bare curves of the female body, and the details are transported into the organic forms of the tree.
Since 1998, Goran is having active cooperation with the painting group“Contra” where he is exhibiting and presenting multimedia projects around Croatia (Facebook website: https://hrhr.facebook.com/GrupaContra119283518267996/timeline/)
Petrac is currently pale Exreparing for International Art Biennhibition of Rome, Italy, which will be held in the coming year, 2016 (website: http://www.romart.org/en/)