I was born in Eastern Europe, in a beautiful coastal city in Croatia, where I lived my first 33 years.For as long as I remember, I wanted to be an artist. To become one, I needed to beat the various odds and remove obstacles thrown my way, and there were many. My parents thought that a life of an artist was too arduous and offered a slim possibility of success, even more for a woman. They vehemently disagreed when I proposed studying art and pursuing an artistic career. Instead, to the Academy of Art, they sent me to the Classical gymnasium and hoped I would study Law afterwards. I rebelled. I wouldn't study, and my grades were terrible.
My father couldn't take the embarrassment, so he made me drop out of school. The same year he divorced my mother, and she ended up in a mental institution. She was bipolar and suffered from mania and depression her entire life. Any time she would go through stressful periods, she would land in a psychiatric hospital. Her mental illness and my father's abandonment and disinterest marked my life.
I never received support or encouragement to pursue my artistic goals, and I fought tooth and nail for my right to do what I felt was my calling.
I emigrated to Italy in 1989, two years before the horrendous civil war shook my country.In 1995 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had surgery and radiation. The surgery and radiation helped, but I wouldn't have survived without art. I started painting on glass, copying readymade patterns, convinced I had lost my artistic talent. Slowly, slowly I built my skills back and started to create my own art.
In 2009 at the age of 50, I emigrated to Canada. In 2013 I graduated with honours from the Fine Arts Faculty in Toronto, finally calling myself an artist. Although I was one all the while, now, I had 'a proof.'
My art is my sweet OCD, and I can't live without it. My art is also my antidepressant. It lifts me up when I am feeling down. Luckily, I have stopped listening to the voices from my childhood that told me I would never succeed. What is a success after all? Art makes me happy, and it makes people that like it happy, and that is all that counts.
I love exploring. I painted on wood, glass, paper, leather, and canvas and recently decided to explore the world of digital art. The more I do art, the more I become brave in my artistic adventures, and I love this feeling. I paint with a full-on feeling, and nothing holds me back anymore. Unafraid, I adventure into new mediums and exploration of new themes.
https://spatial.io/s/YELLOW-MADSVERSE-2-0-61e86055db57f90001f7971a?share=6716009485541771195
YELLOW 2022
International Contemporary Art exhibition
April, 28th - May, 4th 2022
Concept by Art Curator Vanessa Viti
Every man on this Earth is born naked and free, there are no limits in human nature: it is social conventions, moral and legal laws that direct the human being to a certain type of behavior. Each of us has a great capacity for expression but often the human being in the course of history has been deprived of this freedom. Fortunately, in every age there has been someone who has obeyed the primary need to think freely, to express themselves and to go in search of those answers they needed. The rebellious genius is he who possesses, not only the skills, but also the courage to express himself. Galileo Galilei said "I loved the stars too deeply to be afraid of the night", a quote that is a real lesson: it is necessary to pursue one's goals even if they are contrary to normality and to what is customary for everyone. Having the courage to rebel in a positive sense, to give voice to innovative thoughts and ideas is the right and duty of each of us. "Yellow" must be a cry for freedom, a creative force and energy that pushes man, especially the artist, to free himself. The artist has always had a fundamental role in society, that is to break pre-set patterns, instill doubts and thoughts: art is free expression, especially in the current era. Contemporary man needs to shake the dust from his soul and to regenerate his energies. "Yellow" is the courage to live one's life, to be its protagonists, to make decisions and to follow one's wishes, quoting Oscar Wilde "Better to be protagonists of one's own tragedy than spectators of one's life"; he himself was pilloried by Victorian bigotry for his rebellion, recklessness and genius. "Yellow" wants to be an act of revolt, the push to go outside the box to create new ones. Yellow is a symbol of energy and strength, it is the color of gold, the metal that has guided human history for centuries. In ancient Egypt it was the symbol of the power of the Pharaoh, in the Byzantine era it represented the light of God. The backdrops of any representation were yellow-gold, as an expression of God, the ethereal and divine world. Subsequently with the expressionists and abstractionists it will have great importance as a bright and brilliant color, and in it the creative forces will be concentrated. Kandinskij describes the color yellow, in the Spiritual of Art: it is he who gives it the definition of "transcendental" by linking it to the sound of a trumpet. Yellow is the color of mysticism, which brings man closer to infinity; in fact Lucio Fontana in the completely yellow work "Spatial Concept, Waits" goes beyond the boundaries of the tangible world to reach infinity. Yellow can be an idea but also an ideal, in recent years the color yellow has turned into a protest color. In some countries, people dressed in yellow took to the streets to voice their problems. Yellow is a primary color, therefore the freedom of man who finds greater fulfillment in art should also be primary: the freedom to do, to say, to tell and above all to be. Yellow, what is called into question in this great exhibition, is not a specific identity, but is total abstraction, it is the process for achieving individual freedom, it is provocation and contestation. To question oneself by expressing oneself freely is what art imposes on us, the rule to follow to grow artistically and humanly. "Yellow" like the sound of the trumpet mentioned by Kandinskij, is a real call, which must be answered with the courage that distinguishes the artist: the courage to express oneself. The international exhibition "Yellow" at the M.A.D.S. it urges us to be free, to dare and to imagine. The creation of a work is for the artist an act of courage, it is the way through which ideas and ideals can meet and clash. The artist, stripping himself of any prejudice and preconception, can create pure and intimate works, becoming a real act of rebellion.
I made my first reel today, and I didn't know where it went (you are allowed to laugh at me😄😃😁). Only when one of my friends liked it on Facebook could I find it through notifications. 🤣 Still do not know what I am doing. However, I had fun making it, and I hope you will like it too.
Sending you a million stars from my studio (aka bachelor suite)
My newest art project (still in progress) is entitled 'The universe inside me." It is a series of polyptychs.
