(b Kavadarci, 10 Feb 1927; d Skopje, 13 March 1993). Macedonian painter. In 1953 he graduated from the Academy of Arts in Belgrade, where he studied under the painter Zoran Petrovic (1894–1962). He then moved to Skopje and participated in several group exhibitions. In 1958–9 he lived in Paris, and in 1960 he was co-founder in Skopje of the short-lived group Mugri. In the mid-1960s, Mazev started to include in his non-figurative paintings, executed in muted colours and rendered in dense and grainy impasto, materials such as burnt wooden plates, glass, scrap-metal sheets, sand and even some of his earlier smaller-format paintings, which he usually reworked on the spot. During the second half of the 1960s, he completed a series of monochrome paintings, concluding his ‘white period’. During the 1970s he turned to a figurative interpretation of ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, yet with more violent brushwork and thick black contours. After accomplishing several monumental projects in the late 1960s and 1970s, Mazev executed the large (200 sq. m), four-part mosaic decoration in the memorial charnel-house (1979–80) in Titov Veles. He spent the last decade of his career as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Skopje.

• Mazev, Petar
  • Macedonia (ii), §II: Painting, graphic arts and sculpture