Jerko Starcevic (pronounced Yer-co  Star-sir-vich) is a first generation Croatian Australian.

Jerko was born in Brisbane in 1973 to a Croatian father and a Chilean mother of Croatian extraction. He grew up in the inner west suburb of Paddington before moving to the bay side town of Redcliffe to complete his Junior and De La Salle and Senior High School at Frawley  Catholic College (now Southern Cross Catholic College).

Jerko went on to study at the Queensland college of Art at Morningside  completing a Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA Fine Arts) majoring in Intermedia.
 Initially he was attracted to drawing, painting and sculpture including mixed media artworks but eventually he was drawn to metal sculpture. He, humorously, puts this down to his DNA as many of his uncles are boilermakers and welders.

Jerko continued his own work in all the disciplines and has also been employed with Urban Art Projects (UAP), Australia’s premier specialist design consultancy, creating site-specific art and design commissions for architectural and landscape environments, for 15 years.

 As head of UAP’s Patternmaking department, Jerko’s expertise, knowledge and practical craftsmanship has been instrumental in the delivery of most UAP projects. He comments and critiques the artists vision in practical terms, oversees the initial stage of fabrication (which includes the creation of artwork patterns for casting), prototypes and creates whilst ensuring the work’s artistic integrity.

As an artist and sculptor in his own right Jerko approaches art projects with both sensitivity and pragmatism.  His art reflects his temperament and his ancestry and he has a keen eye for detail and the history inherent in what the art represents.  When working on commission he is keenly aware of what the client / patron wants and is able to satisfy their needs whilst showing them the possibilities of the art they request.

He can create within the practical and commercial and within the avant-garde disciplines, and can bring distinctiveness, thought and experiment to the commercial as well as bringing general approval to the avant-garde.

Importantly, Jerko is the complete artist.

He can take a piece of art from an idea through to drawing, patternmaking, prototyping, manufacturing, and installation. At each one of these stages he is able to do all the work himself and quality control the piece. There are no middlemen required as Jerko deals directly with the client / patron at each and every stage. In that regard Jerko’s art reflects his heroes, artists like Ivan Mestrovic,  August Rodin and Antun Augustinčić  who were hands on artisans as well as artists.

When not travelling around Australia or overseas for work Jerko leads the quiet life and resides at Mt Nebo in Brisbane’s northwest with his wife and children.