Marinčo Kocalev

Marinčo Kocalev (born February 2, 1958) is a Macedonian fine artist born in Stip, Macedonia. He worked as a high school professor of fine art for several Stip based high schools for over 16 years before he moved to Toronto, Canada along with his family in late 1999, where he currently resides. He has painted portraits of many of the mayors of Stip, Macedonia. He has also painted former Macedonian president Kiro Gligorov as well as the Archibishop of Macedonia Stefan twice(once as a pope and then as the archibishop), and several wealthy businessmen, high ranking politicians and military generals around the country such as Konstandin Barzov, the owner of Bargala AD a large shoe company in Macedonia that distributes to dozens upon dozens of countries' markets around the world, the Balkans region as well as in other countries around Europe during his travels, also in Canada, one of being in 2006 a portrait of Ignat Kaneff, a Bulgarian businessman and founder of Kaneff Group of Companies Inc, as well as a painting of Goce Delcev which is hung above the Mayor's desk in his office in Stip. Upon expanding his knowledge in fine arts through the 1970s when he was studying fine arts as well as attending the University of Fine Arts in Skopje, he travelled around Europe in places such as France, Italy, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Greece, Croatia, Germany, Hungary and other places. He is also a 2nd dan in Shotokan Karate and attended the military during Tito's rule of Yugoslavia.