Maya Kulenovic is a

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artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

working in

Painting Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

and

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. She lives and works in

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, Canada and exhibits internationally.

Biography

Kulenovic was born in 1975 in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ), ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'' is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 2 ...

SR Bosnia and Herzegovina The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Bosna i Hercegovina, Социјалистичка Pепублика Босна и Херцеговина), commonly referred to as Socia ...

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (commonly abbreviated as SFRY or SFR Yugoslavia), known from 1945 to 1963 as the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as Socialist Yugoslavia or simply Yugoslavia, was a country ...

. She studied at Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Mimar Sinan University in

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; and

Chelsea College of Art and Design Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. It offers further and higher education courses in fine art, graphic design, interior design, prod ...

(

University of the Arts London The University of the Arts London is a public collegiate university in London, England, United Kingdom. It specialises in arts, design, fashion, and the performing arts. The university is a federation of six arts colleges: Camberwell College of ...

) in

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. She is also an alumna of Goodenough College in London, England. A book about the work of Maya Kulenovic by Edward Lucie-Smith in Dutch and English was published by d'jonge Hond in the

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in 2007. Her second monograph, ''Maya Kulenovic: Fugue'', with an essay by Mark Kingwell, was published in Toronto in 2017.

Commentary

Whether with portraits, which she terms "faces", architecture, referred to as "build" works, landscapes or still life images, Kulenovic's focus is to capture an ambience or psychological state. She deliberately explores ambiguity, and in her approach to the painted surface she works in glazed layers as well as destructive techniques to create images evoking a particular atemporal context. Although so very different in subject, the works have the same aura of loneliness, stillness and desire. Her influences range from sculpture and painting to architecture, photography and film, and include Roman death masks, 19th century daguerreotype photography, documentary films, stills from damaged motion pictures, Eugène Atget,

Margaret Bourke-White Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971) was an American documentary photography, documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, ...

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

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and

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England under King James I. Bacon argued for the importance of nat ...

. Edward Lucie-Smith wrote the following about Kulenovic's work: "No-one could describe Maya Kulenovic's paintings as 'photographic', but their place in the realist tradition is nevertheless secure. Her work is realist in the way that Rembrandt and Goya are realist. They attempt to explore the essence of human existence, and often come up with uncomfortable truths. These truths are conveyed through paintings that fall into very specific categories, related to the old hierarchy of genres that was discarded by the pioneering Modernists, in Kulenovic's work we find still life paintings, portraits (of a sort), landscapes and architectural compositions" The still lifes, the architectural compositions, the faces and the landscapes are all, in their essence, attempts to identify and present a particular state of being. This quality is, as Edward Lucie-Smith states, 'the thing that makes her work so haunting, and so unlike the work of any other artist of her own generation that I can immediately think of'.Lucie-Smith, Edward."Maya Kulenovic" (d'jonge Hond/Netherlands 2008), pg15

References

Sources

* Edward Lucie-Smith, (translation by B. Ruijsenaars) "Maya Kulenovic" (d'jonge Hond/Netherlands 2008), 1 vol. Hardcover (128 p.), * Mark Kingwell, "Measure Yourself Against the Earth: Essays", pages 228-233, (Biblioasis, 2015) * Mark Kingwell, Anthony Collins, "Maya Kulenovic: Fugue", (Toronto, Ontario, Canada/2017), 1 vol. Hardcover (144 p.),

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulenovic, Maya 1975 births Living people Bosnia and Herzegovina emigrants to Canada Artists from Sarajevo Canadian contemporary painters Canadian women painters Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts 20th-century Canadian women artists Cityscape artists 21st-century Canadian women artists