The layered and anachronistic evolutionary path of Zorislav Drempetić, known among the painters of Hrvatsko Zagorje, has not yet fully taken root in the general perception. His half-century-long creative work is today mostly remembered for the ideal image of his native space with romantic connotations, which over time grew into a painting paradigm of undeniable personal significance. The first ten years of the most innovative and contemporary artistic moment of synchronous creation were thereby completely pushed into oblivion as if they had never existed. As it is a noteworthy contribution by which our painter characteristically referred to the artistic tendencies of the sixties, it is our obligation according to historical truth to return to the focus of interest precisely his autonomous participation in the artistic contemporaneity of one of the key epochs of modern Croatian painting, which the sediments of time pushed him deeply in the shade.
As a member of the post-war generation of painters who entered the scene after graduating from the Academy in the early 1960s, when abstraction had already flooded our art studios and was the universal "style" of the post-war era, Drempetić could not resist the challenge of abstract tendencies. How he found himself there in accordance with the autogenic facts of his artistic battle and what "crucial questions" he faced when stepping into his early painting adventure, he let us know in an interview from the eighties, saying: To recognize oneself within the overall tradition, and especially within trendy movements generation to which I belong, is a crucial question for me. Carrying within me the first experiences and incentives for artistic expression from my parents' home, and then going to school in Zagreb, then in Ljubljana, and again in Zagreb, I was "washed" by the ubiquitous influences of enformal and abstract tendencies...