Mirko Priuli

Sign, Memory, Nature

Born in the 1960s in Valposchiavo, Switzerland, I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Even in kindergarten, I used to fill sheets of paper with little people, animals and doodles. Later, during my years at classical high school, I was lucky enough to have an excellent visual arts teacher who played an important role in my artistic development.

Then came Zurich: New Wave, punk, music and street art. It was there that I discovered the artists who would have the greatest influence on my visual language. Harald Nägeli, the Zurich Sprayer, and Keith Haring became my main points of reference.

During the last millennium, I worked as a musician and graphic designer, then in the cultural sector and as a journalist, all the while continuing to draw and experiment on paper, wood, stone and other materials. My travels across Europe, Asia and Central America broadened my visual library. Symbols, pictograms, animals and shapes from different cultures found their way into my memory and, often much later, resurfaced in my drawings in transformed ways.

My work grows out of the encounter between animals, anthropomorphic figures, pictograms, petroglyphs and ancient, faraway symbols. These are images and traces I observe, collect in my memory and rework, turning them into simple, symbolic forms without trying to achieve realism. Nature and animals remain an important source of inspiration, alongside this vast collection of signs and figures.

A dark period in my life kept me away from drawing for ten years, from 2014 to 2024. Once I had recovered, I started drawing again, and I haven’t stopped since. Drawing has once again become an essential part of my life and my way of expressing myself.

Since then, I haven't stopped.

This new beginning is where the current language of Tribal Art Stories comes from: a universe of signs, colours, animals and symbols built around the contrast between black outlines and colour. A visual language that began many decades ago and is still evolving today.

In my more recent work, the figures are becoming more independent and iconic, leaving more room for their own identity and for the surface of the canvas.

My background in advertising graphic design has given me skills that have now become an important part of my artistic practice. My simple, graphic style lends itself particularly well to digital reworking. I can revisit each drawing on my computer, change its colours, adjust its format and proportions, or make small refinements without losing the identity of the original work. And that’s something I really enjoy.

This meeting point between hand-drawn and digital art reflects who I am. It’s a process I enjoy, both creating the work and sharing it. Alongside the original, my drawings can therefore take on different forms, with different colours, sizes and formats.

This same urge to experiment also led me to create short animations for Instagram, my main social media platform (@tribal_art_stories).

Through movement, I can reveal something more than a static image, opening up new possibilities for visual storytelling. For me, it’s a natural way of taking drawing beyond the surface, exploring new possibilities without ever forgetting that it all starts with my own hand.

Tribal Art Stories is the crossroads between what I have observed, what I have lived, and what I continue to imagine.

And deep down, I simply keep doing what I did as a child: 

Observe, imagine and draw.