Matija Čop explores the notion of translation not merely as linguistic, but as material and structural. He composes, disassembles, and reconfigures forms to create a body of work that reflects the complexities of identity, structure, meaning, and becoming.

Matija Čop is a London-based artist working across sculpture, painting, and printmaking. Originally from Croatia, his practice is shaped by the experience of growing up during the Balkan conflicts and the Croatian war for independence in the 1990s, a fragmented and transitional era that sharpened his sensitivity to questions of identity, its construction, and its vulnerability.

Čop’s practice is shaped by his personal history, particularly his experience as a gay man navigating post-communist Croatia, where social structures upheld rigid gender roles and heteronormative norms. His work arises from an engagement with the self as something in flux – constantly adapting, resisting, and reimagining. Prior to pursuing art, Čop trained as a professional sprinter and studied philology, two fields that continue to influence his approach to language, form, and embodiment. These diverse influences converge in a practice that is deeply attuned to processes of transformation and reinvention.

A central concept in Čop’s work is “translation”—not merely linguistic, but material and structural. Using modular unit elements, he composes, disassembles, and reconfigures forms according to systems devised for each project. These forms shift between states of cohesion and fragmentation, evoking the tensions between order and chaos, logic and intuition, manufacture and craft. Through this process-driven approach, Čop explores how identities, narratives, and objects are constantly rewritten. The result is a body of work that reflects the complexities of structure, meaning, and becoming.

Čop holds an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (2017). His interdisciplinary interests have led to collaborations with leading fashion houses, including Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood, as well as contributions to Brave New World, NBCUniversal (2020), and Socrates’s Death – Plato at Cultural Centre Travno, Zagreb (2019). He currently teaches at both the Royal College of Art and Harvard University.

Recent solo exhibitions include: In the meantime, The Meštrović Pavilion, HDLU, Zagreb (2024); Heat, Grief, Teeth, Galerija Kranjčar, Zagreb (2023); A showcase, Sapling Gallery, London (2023). Čop’s work is held in public and private collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, and the Neal Baer Collection in New York.

In the Meantime

A showcase

Thisispaper

In the Meantime

Object 12-1, Type 162 
2012
Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris

Object 12-1, Type 2
2012
Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris