Berlin's most tender provocateurs on desire, memory, and the politics of queer existence
There is something quietly radical about making art from inside a love story. For Michele Santomarco and Aleksandar Mijatovic, the couple behind Berlin-based queer artist duo Greif Lazic, their relationship is not simply a backdrop to their practice. It is the practice. Every canvas, drawing, and linocut print they make is shaped by the intimacy they share, the queer histories that came before them, and the planet they feel responsible to protect.
We are proud to feature Greif Lazic in Inspiró Magazine Issue 7, a conversation long overdue.
"Our practice is rooted in desire and lived intimacy, shaped by our relationship and shared daily life, and informed by queer history and culture."
A name that honours mothers
The name Greif Lazic is itself an act of love, a tribute to their mothers, combining each artist's mother's maiden name. It's a detail that says a lot: this is a duo that finds meaning in the personal, in lineage, in the women who raised two boys who would grow up to fall in love and make art together.
Michele and Aleks have been a couple since 2016, and have worked together as an artist duo since 2019. Since establishing their studio in the heart of Berlin, they have created a body of work that is at once tender and politically alive, paintings, drawings, and prints that ask what it means to live, love, and be queer in the world today.
What they make — and why it matters
Greif Lazic's work spans themes of queer identity, intimacy, sexuality, and ecological consciousness. They draw from pop culture, cinema, queer life, and their own daily experience. Irony and sarcasm feature, but so does genuine vulnerability. Their art doesn't shout. It pulls you in close.
Their series span a remarkable range of emotional registers:
Their linocut print series, pulled entirely by hand, with each impression carrying slight variations that make every piece unique, has proven especially popular, with editions selling out and prompting new runs by popular demand.
From Berlin to the world
Though rooted firmly in Berlin, Greif Lazic's work has travelled. They have exhibited in New York, Vienna, Barcelona, and Berlin, and works from their collections are held in private collections worldwide. Their prints and original works are available through galleries and stockists across Europe and beyond, including ODD Kiosk in Barcelona, described as the world's first LGBTQIA+ art and magazine kiosk.
In 2024, they were invited by KINK Magazine to develop the full concept and content for Cuaderno 24, the artist-curated booklet accompanying issue 43, a milestone they describe as one of the highlights of their practice. They have also shown at Berlin venues including Prince Peach and Café Gentil, and their work has appeared in SNIFF Magazine alongside a strong lineup of queer and fetish creatives.
"Beautiful Fags takes its title from one of the central works in the show — a glowing pink Berlin facade tagged with the words 'Fags Are Beautiful', a reclaiming and a reminder that queer life is visible, powerful, and present."
Art as activism, nature as witness
What distinguishes Greif Lazic from many of their contemporaries is the way their work holds two seemingly separate concerns together: the intimacy of queer love and the urgency of ecological crisis. Their series Hidden Love explores the intersection of queer perspective and the natural world, while Regenerative Bodies pays homage to both human and planetary resilience. Whenever they connect with nature, they feel most themselves — and their art reflects that.
This is art that refuses to separate the personal from the political, the body from the landscape, love from responsibility.
Why we featured them in Issue 7
Inspiró has always celebrated artists who make work from a place of real conviction, not trends, not algorithms, not gallery approval. Greif Lazic represent exactly that. They are two people who chose each other, chose Berlin, chose to name themselves after their mothers, and chose to put their relationship at the centre of everything they make. The result is a practice that is warm, brave, and genuinely their own.
In Issue 7, we go deeper, into their process, their influences, their vision for queer art's role in a world under pressure, and what it means to make beautiful things together every single day.
Visit their website: www.greiflazic.com
