Photos courtesy Tulum Country Club
Tulum Country Club, the gated residential community operated by Grupo Piñero on the Riviera Maya, has opened an exhibition by Zoran Matić, a Serbian-born painter described as one of the last living disciples of surrealist master Salvador Dalí.
The exhibition launched at The Club, part of the development’s social and leisure facilities near Tulum, with an opening cocktail reception and a live performance by the musical group Ona. Several of this top European artist’s works will remain on display, accessible to residents and visitors.
The event is part of a broader push by the 1,500-acre (600-hectare) development to position itself as a cultural destination alongside its existing golf, beach, and real estate offerings. Álvaro Moya, Country Manager of Tulum Country Club, said the exhibition reflected the community’s goal of connecting its multinational residents with international art and talent. Piñero, the Mallorca-headquartered tourism and real estate group behind the development, has identified culture as a core part of its residential lifestyle programming across the Caribbean.
International Art at Tulum Country Club
Matić was born in the former Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia) and trained at the Academy of Modern Art in Sarajevo, where he specialized in drawing, painting, and the restoration of antique art. The defining chapter of his career came at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, where he worked for two years and became one of only five artists accepted as direct disciples of Dalí himself.
That experience left a deep imprint on his work, which blends surrealism and what he calls “fantastic realism” across more than 100 painting techniques. His output over a prolific career includes participation in over 70 artistic collectives, 36 group exhibitions, and a range of multidisciplinary performances spanning several decades.
Beyond the canvas, Matić has earned recognition as a writer and poet, collecting awards in Japan, Italy, Hungary, and Turkey. His artistic practice draws on spiritual influences rooted in Zen Buddhism, a thread visible in the philosophical undertone of the pieces now on show in Tulum. Attendees at the opening night were able to view a curated selection of these works, which are characterized by a layering of techniques and a focus on the spiritual and philosophical rather than the purely decorative.
Growing Cultural Ambitions
For Tulum Country Club, the exhibition represents an effort to diversify the lifestyle proposition of a development best known for its PGA Riviera Maya golf course (the only PGA of America-licensed course in Mexico) and its Kay Beach Club on the Caribbean coast.
The community spans nearly 3,000 homes with more than 5,000 residents drawn from across the Americas and Europe, many of them retirees or remote workers who relocated during and after the pandemic. Adding high-caliber cultural events to the calendar is a way to deepen the community experience for a population that lives on-site year-round, not just during vacation windows.
The Matić exhibition fits into a pattern of programming at Tulum Country Club that has included yoga master classes, padel tournaments, junior golf tours, and environmental education events with the Eco-Bahía Foundation. Culture, though, has historically been the weaker leg of that offering, and bringing in an internationally recognized artist with a direct connection to one of the 20th century’s most famous painters signals a more serious commitment.
For the Riviera Maya, the arrival of gallery-level exhibitions at a residential development rather than a hotel or museum underscores how the region’s cultural scene is expanding beyond the usual resort programming and into the spaces where people actually live.
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Story by LuxuryRiviera.com
