Slavka Kolesar

 

I am a Canadian artist born in Montreal and currently painting and beekeeping in Jaffray, BC. All children excel at painting and drawing and I was one of them, but I somehow continued using paint, pencils, thread and fabric as a means of communication. I’m intrigued by the function of images as non-verbal communicators that connect us to our irrational and intuitive identity. Through the process of image making, the parallel universes and dreams we carry inside become apparent and possible to interpret. As such, images are links to the various individual and collective memories from which we extract and synthesize meaning, and we become more self-aware through the process.

I use images like words, creating alternative alphabets of interwoven lines and shapes that visually recall calligraphy, or the way in which letters punctuate the silence of a blank page. The themes I like to address relate to the various non-verbal communication patterns found in nature and within our own nature, and to the folklore and imagery surrounding mythological birds. As an illustrator I tell stories with images.

 

Academic background :

I honed my visual and technical skills at the Toronto Academy of Realist Art and at the University of Toronto where I acquired a BA Hons in visual studies and art history.

In 2001 I had travelled to the university town of Santiniketan in India, where I studied ancient Indian art and culture at the Viswa Bharati University founded by the Bengali poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore.

 

Keep the collaborations and freelance commissions coming! Write me at slavka@birdonabranch.com.

 

Exhibitions :

Solo show “Seeds”, United Nations, NY. 2006
Solo show “First Light”, United Nations, NY. 2004

 

Publications :

Caracol by Maricarmen Mendoza. Published by Nostra Ediciones, 2008

Peaceful Visions, stamp series issued by the United Nations Postal Administration in 2007

El Àrbol de la Esperanza by Carmen Carballo Basadre, published by Colección Miscelánea, 2005