(Maglaj, 1945 – Sarajevo, 2018)
He graduated from the High School of Applied Arts (High Art School) in Sarajevo in 1965. In 1966 he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts (now the Faculty of Fine Arts) in Belgrade where he graduated in 1971 at the Painting Department in the class of professor Mladen Srbinović, and obtained the title of an academy-trained (graduated) painter.
Since 1972 he was a member of the Association of Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ULUBiH). In 1974 he completed his post-graduate studies in painting in the class of professor Srbinović at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade and obtained the master degree in painting. In the same year he moved to Sarajevo and got employment at the newly opened Academy of Fine Arts as a teaching assistant for the courses of Drawing (of professor M. Berber) and Engraving (of professor S. Hasanefendić).
Art criticism described his early painting phase as close to the poetics of surrealism and poetic realism and Obralić's exquisite painting gift was spotted very early – already on his first solo exhibitions in the Gallery of the Kolarac People's University in Belgrade and Art Pavilion in Sarajevo (1973). From 1973 to 1978 he was a member of the 4S group.
Between 1974 and 1979 he exhibited his works at over seventy exhibitions in the country and abroad and won a number of exquisite recognitions and awards. In 1983 he was awarded the Sixth April Award of the City of Sarajevo in the field of visual arts. In the same year he got the tenure of the Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo.
From 1978 on wards he was permanently associated with Počitelj, when he bought an old stone house there, which was to become his creative studio in the coming decades, while through there search of the painting medium and affected by the ambiance, his painting art drew near abstraction. The exceptionally prolific and exhibition-abundant eighties were followed by the wartime years that Obralić spent in Sarajevo.
One of the most significant visual art projects in the besieged city was the project of print portfolios Sarajevo 92-95by the Academy of Fine Arts and International Peace Centre, launched upon the idea and initiative of Salim Obralić. The print portfolios, as a testimony of the wartime horrors by the professors and students of the Sarajevo Academy of Fine Arts and artists were exhibited across the globe.
The war aftermath brought many innovations and researching strides in the opus of Salim Obralić through a very original and innovative synthesis of different media: printmaking, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, ready-made, ambiental and site-specific installations exhibited in museums and galleries, as well as in the ambience of medieval castles, memorial sites and urban sights, both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on many international exhibitions.