"I'M FINE, YOU'RE FINE. 14 ARTISTS RESPOND TO CLIMATE CHANGE"
April 22nd, Earth Day 2009, curated by Zoe Pawlak and Merete Kristiansen
excerpts from exhibition catalogue
I'm Fine, You're Fine presents the finest in emerging Canadian talent. The response and quality of the work assembled through a call for submissions are both impressive and diverse. Through the curatorial practice of collection and assembly, we have accumulated work from 14 Canadian artists that address issues of climate change. I'm Fine, You're Fine questions our ambivalence and apathy towards climate change in parallel to our bold and vast attempts to rectify a growing number of problems. The selected artists work with irony and wit to develop a brilliant critique. Selected topics include temperature change, the displacement of people and animals, water scarcity and altered ecosystems. What obligations do Canadians feel toward our planet? Will we do our part in translating our knowledge into sustained action beyond symbolic gestures, even if it requires sacrifice and discomfort?
The potential for impending doom and grief are playfully manipulated. The work is strong in message and layered with smart intention and wise consideration. The interplay of these 14 artists' work poses the clearest question of all: Will we really be fine?
Fourteen artists work to answer this inquiry, using a wide range of media and materials to reflect their respective deliberations. As a result, the audience is given an opportunity to look at familiar issues, yet contemplate them from an entirely new point of view and through unexpected mediums: fabric, portraiture, and ceramics, to mention just a few.
By avoiding the blatant, the artists of I'm Fine, You're Fine encourage viewers to approach these subjects on a deeper level and ask questions that extend beyond the obvious. There are no statistics, no haunting images predicting an unavoidable demise of the planet. Instead, serious issues are explored by fourteen individuals and interpreted through humour and irony. Will we really be fine? The curators ask, and ultimately, you, the audience will ask as well. Exhibitions such as this remind us that complex issues can only be resolved with creativity. To engage in a discussion about climate change and our various responses to this profoundly affecting issue, is to have paid attention. Paying attention, as both Vey Duke and Gore have taught us, is the necessary first step, the first rippling indication, of change.
excerpts from exhibition catalogue
I'm Fine, You're Fine presents the finest in emerging Canadian talent. The response and quality of the work assembled through a call for submissions are both impressive and diverse. Through the curatorial practice of collection and assembly, we have accumulated work from 14 Canadian artists that address issues of climate change. I'm Fine, You're Fine questions our ambivalence and apathy towards climate change in parallel to our bold and vast attempts to rectify a growing number of problems. The selected artists work with irony and wit to develop a brilliant critique. Selected topics include temperature change, the displacement of people and animals, water scarcity and altered ecosystems. What obligations do Canadians feel toward our planet? Will we do our part in translating our knowledge into sustained action beyond symbolic gestures, even if it requires sacrifice and discomfort?
The potential for impending doom and grief are playfully manipulated. The work is strong in message and layered with smart intention and wise consideration. The interplay of these 14 artists' work poses the clearest question of all: Will we really be fine?
Fourteen artists work to answer this inquiry, using a wide range of media and materials to reflect their respective deliberations. As a result, the audience is given an opportunity to look at familiar issues, yet contemplate them from an entirely new point of view and through unexpected mediums: fabric, portraiture, and ceramics, to mention just a few.
By avoiding the blatant, the artists of I'm Fine, You're Fine encourage viewers to approach these subjects on a deeper level and ask questions that extend beyond the obvious. There are no statistics, no haunting images predicting an unavoidable demise of the planet. Instead, serious issues are explored by fourteen individuals and interpreted through humour and irony. Will we really be fine? The curators ask, and ultimately, you, the audience will ask as well. Exhibitions such as this remind us that complex issues can only be resolved with creativity. To engage in a discussion about climate change and our various responses to this profoundly affecting issue, is to have paid attention. Paying attention, as both Vey Duke and Gore have taught us, is the necessary first step, the first rippling indication, of change.
"EVERY PAINTING TELLS A STORY", English version*
Magazin 'Art, winter 2008
by Ingrid C. King
Nikol Haskova's contemporary art is like a raw nerve on the edge of the world, exposing melancholy roots below the surface and triumphant trees that stretch their limbs to exuberant skies above. Emotions reverberate from each canvas. On the other side, a surprise awaits. A slip of paper attached to the back offers lines of Haskova's poetry that expose in words the story she completes with paint.
It's unusual for artists to write and for writers to paint, but Haskova bridges both worlds. Before she appoaches a fresh canvas, she links a painting's theme to a poem that she's written. "Sometimes people ask if I'm not worried that the poems make the paintings too personal, but I never have extra paintings in my studio", says Haskova. "People almost always buy art because of a vulnerability, or a joy or memory it offers them. In my case, the stories only make the experience deeper."
Since she was a child, Haskova has expressed herself through words and art, often drawing on scraps of newspaper when no other paper was available. You see, Haskova spent her first 15 years living under the oppressive communist rule of the former Czechoslovakia. When she was 11 years old, her family got their first telephone. "I remember being on the phone with my grandmother and hearing a loud click. Our phone was tapped," she says. In school Haskova routinely had drills to put on gas masks in case of attack, and had to draw Soviet tanks for her art class.
The light in Haskova's life was her family. Her parents are both artistic: her father is a photographer and her mother, an artist at heart. They fed her a steady diet rich in culture. "My mother is a perfect example of an artist broken by art school," says Haskova, who is self taught. Her mother's own experience had been so negative that she set aside her dream of becoming an artist. But she always encouraged Nikol and took her to culture-rich Prague to see exhibits, museums, and even controversial live theatre from an early age.
In 1987, Haskova's family fled Czechoslovakia with a dream to come to Canada. Without saying goodbye to friends and family, they travelled to Yugoslavia before they arrived in a refugee camp that resembled a prison. "For the first month, we were quarantined behind bars. There was barbed wire around the entire place and some of the refugees were criminals," says Haskova. "It was a melting pot of good and bad people and we had to line up with pots and pans for food. These experiences make you a deeper person," she ads, her tone matter-of-fact as she acknowledges the unpleasant past.
After living in European government-sponsored housing for eleven months, the family was allowed to move to Vancouver. "It was my first time on a plane," says Haskova. "We were picked up by a nice taxi driver who took us on a long, scenic route to show off the city. It was the day before Canada Day and music was blaring and people were loud. It was such a culture shock."
After a bumpy start, her family settled in the suburbs where Haskova adjusted and made friends. Once she mastered English, Haskova competed in poetry contests and continued to draw and paint. "I applied to Emily Carr on a scholarship but I didn't get it," says Haskova. "Today I am so thankful I didn't get in," she says with a wry smile. "I feel that if I had gone to school I would have lost the purity of my art," says Haskova. Her technique is unconventional and completely her own. She knows that her style breaks the conventional rules of painting and often omits details like curves in her landscapes, embracing straight lines and blurring styles.
Before she began painting fulltime in 2006, Haskova supported herself by working in local art galleries where she learned the business side of the industry. One day, a friend gave Haskova a sketchbook and canvases. Seeing the demolition of a row of old houses near her home to make room for new development, she was inspired to create her first painting: Deeper Roots. "The result was a dark, atmospheric piece with a gloomy horizon and ten naked trees that appeared to live despite their circumstances. Their roots ran down the entire length of the painting, suggesting a stubborn will for life," says Haskova. "While I felt powerless to slow the development, I wanted to at least acknowledge it. To record an echo, a memory of what once was."
Along with houses and crows, trees still remain a powerful image in Haskova's work. "I want them to contrast the mundane, to shine against the grey plastic of our modern existence," says Haskova. "I want them to remind us of when we were little and climbed up to watch the world. Long after we leave, they will still sing songs about us."
The dichotomy of different worlds, cultures and lifestyles Haskova has experienced are reflected in the divisive, compelling style of her paintings. They show sections of sharply defined images contrasted by muted abstraction and blocks of color that nod to cubist techniques. One can argue that Haskova's paintings break the rules or that they break new ground. Her landscapes offer a cross-section of nature, images above and below ground separated by a neat, crisp line. "Learning on my own has kept my paintings more raw. They may not be technically correct but they are authentic to what I am feeling."
Haskova begins each painting on a prepared canvas. "I like a really buttery surface, and also paint on wood boards made of thick plywood birch. My dad builds the panels for me, she adds. Then Haskova paints on layers of gesso before she uses a charcoal pencil and acrylic gel. "I start with a warm color like sienna and saturate the canvas with several layers before coating it with a glaze, which intensifies the color." The blocks of color are an unconscious element that she finds emotionally satisfying. And last, she attaches the poem that inspired the painting.
In September, Haskova's latest paintings were shown at an exhibition at the Canada House Gallery in Banff. The invitation displays her diptych, Unconditional. This is the accompanying poem:
"Unconditional"
Love has so many faces. Deep, shockingly intense, patient, conflicted, or tender and sweet. Sometimes you find it when you look for it, other times it finds you. When it does, you will know. It may sneak up and surprise you, but when it finally touches you, you will melt into a thousand pieces and feel like you have never felt before.
"My paintings are very emotional and sensitive," says Haskova. "It doesn't have to be about super realism. It's all about the emotion that people feel when they look at my work."
*please send a request to see the French version
by Ingrid C. King
Nikol Haskova's contemporary art is like a raw nerve on the edge of the world, exposing melancholy roots below the surface and triumphant trees that stretch their limbs to exuberant skies above. Emotions reverberate from each canvas. On the other side, a surprise awaits. A slip of paper attached to the back offers lines of Haskova's poetry that expose in words the story she completes with paint.
It's unusual for artists to write and for writers to paint, but Haskova bridges both worlds. Before she appoaches a fresh canvas, she links a painting's theme to a poem that she's written. "Sometimes people ask if I'm not worried that the poems make the paintings too personal, but I never have extra paintings in my studio", says Haskova. "People almost always buy art because of a vulnerability, or a joy or memory it offers them. In my case, the stories only make the experience deeper."
Since she was a child, Haskova has expressed herself through words and art, often drawing on scraps of newspaper when no other paper was available. You see, Haskova spent her first 15 years living under the oppressive communist rule of the former Czechoslovakia. When she was 11 years old, her family got their first telephone. "I remember being on the phone with my grandmother and hearing a loud click. Our phone was tapped," she says. In school Haskova routinely had drills to put on gas masks in case of attack, and had to draw Soviet tanks for her art class.
The light in Haskova's life was her family. Her parents are both artistic: her father is a photographer and her mother, an artist at heart. They fed her a steady diet rich in culture. "My mother is a perfect example of an artist broken by art school," says Haskova, who is self taught. Her mother's own experience had been so negative that she set aside her dream of becoming an artist. But she always encouraged Nikol and took her to culture-rich Prague to see exhibits, museums, and even controversial live theatre from an early age.
In 1987, Haskova's family fled Czechoslovakia with a dream to come to Canada. Without saying goodbye to friends and family, they travelled to Yugoslavia before they arrived in a refugee camp that resembled a prison. "For the first month, we were quarantined behind bars. There was barbed wire around the entire place and some of the refugees were criminals," says Haskova. "It was a melting pot of good and bad people and we had to line up with pots and pans for food. These experiences make you a deeper person," she ads, her tone matter-of-fact as she acknowledges the unpleasant past.
After living in European government-sponsored housing for eleven months, the family was allowed to move to Vancouver. "It was my first time on a plane," says Haskova. "We were picked up by a nice taxi driver who took us on a long, scenic route to show off the city. It was the day before Canada Day and music was blaring and people were loud. It was such a culture shock."
After a bumpy start, her family settled in the suburbs where Haskova adjusted and made friends. Once she mastered English, Haskova competed in poetry contests and continued to draw and paint. "I applied to Emily Carr on a scholarship but I didn't get it," says Haskova. "Today I am so thankful I didn't get in," she says with a wry smile. "I feel that if I had gone to school I would have lost the purity of my art," says Haskova. Her technique is unconventional and completely her own. She knows that her style breaks the conventional rules of painting and often omits details like curves in her landscapes, embracing straight lines and blurring styles.
Before she began painting fulltime in 2006, Haskova supported herself by working in local art galleries where she learned the business side of the industry. One day, a friend gave Haskova a sketchbook and canvases. Seeing the demolition of a row of old houses near her home to make room for new development, she was inspired to create her first painting: Deeper Roots. "The result was a dark, atmospheric piece with a gloomy horizon and ten naked trees that appeared to live despite their circumstances. Their roots ran down the entire length of the painting, suggesting a stubborn will for life," says Haskova. "While I felt powerless to slow the development, I wanted to at least acknowledge it. To record an echo, a memory of what once was."
Along with houses and crows, trees still remain a powerful image in Haskova's work. "I want them to contrast the mundane, to shine against the grey plastic of our modern existence," says Haskova. "I want them to remind us of when we were little and climbed up to watch the world. Long after we leave, they will still sing songs about us."
The dichotomy of different worlds, cultures and lifestyles Haskova has experienced are reflected in the divisive, compelling style of her paintings. They show sections of sharply defined images contrasted by muted abstraction and blocks of color that nod to cubist techniques. One can argue that Haskova's paintings break the rules or that they break new ground. Her landscapes offer a cross-section of nature, images above and below ground separated by a neat, crisp line. "Learning on my own has kept my paintings more raw. They may not be technically correct but they are authentic to what I am feeling."
Haskova begins each painting on a prepared canvas. "I like a really buttery surface, and also paint on wood boards made of thick plywood birch. My dad builds the panels for me, she adds. Then Haskova paints on layers of gesso before she uses a charcoal pencil and acrylic gel. "I start with a warm color like sienna and saturate the canvas with several layers before coating it with a glaze, which intensifies the color." The blocks of color are an unconscious element that she finds emotionally satisfying. And last, she attaches the poem that inspired the painting.
In September, Haskova's latest paintings were shown at an exhibition at the Canada House Gallery in Banff. The invitation displays her diptych, Unconditional. This is the accompanying poem:
"Unconditional"
Love has so many faces. Deep, shockingly intense, patient, conflicted, or tender and sweet. Sometimes you find it when you look for it, other times it finds you. When it does, you will know. It may sneak up and surprise you, but when it finally touches you, you will melt into a thousand pieces and feel like you have never felt before.
"My paintings are very emotional and sensitive," says Haskova. "It doesn't have to be about super realism. It's all about the emotion that people feel when they look at my work."
*please send a request to see the French version
"WINDOW ON HER WORLD"
The Langley Times, February 25, 2007
by Brenda Anderson
Her knowledge of Czech, Russian, Slovakian, German and English aside, when Nikol Haskova communicates through her painting, it’s a language everyone can understand — even if the meaning is filtered through the viewers’ experiences.
“In my work I try to capture the really simple things in a landscape — things you’d drive past without noticing,” said the artist, at home in her Walnut Grove studio, where she’s finishing up the last paintings for her first-ever solo exhibit. Titled Glimpse, the 25-piece show will open March 3 at the Adele Campbell Gallery in Whistler. Two main styles predominate the work Haskova will show. Her landscapes, while modern, contain all the expected elements — foreground, horizon, sky, fences, buildings and trees — plenty of trees. These pieces, she says, are generally inspired by places she’s seen in life or in photographs. “There are areas of Langley which are familiar, but won’t be much longer,” said Haskova, alluding to the rapid development taking place in the community. Capturing the beauty of a tree becomes that much more urgent, she said, knowing that once it’s replaced by concrete, it’s gone forever.
But the 34-year-old artist’s signature images, her windows, are what truly set her apart. These are of stylized tree tops, set against the sky, with no horizon visible to lend perspective, as though they are viewed, looking up at an angle, through a window. “My windows are more meditative. “I tend to change those (elements) around to be aesthetically pleasing,” said the artist, who began painting “seriously” about three years ago. Both her landscapes and her more abstract pieces embody a single theme, said Haskova. “It’s about relaxing andtaking a pause — that meditative quality.” Haskova takes great pleasure in “doing something that simply makes people happy and nothing else.” There’s a definite solemnity to her work, however, admitted the artist, who came to Canada 16 years ago from what was then still Czechoslovakia. Life under communist rule was harsh, and while Haskova was still a teenager, her photographer father and artist mother moved the family to the West. “It was scary, but some of the things we’d gone through — it was easy to leave behind. “I’m so thankful to be here, to be Canadian,” she said. “I cried when I got my citizenship.” Still, memories of life behind the Iron Curtain remain, and manifest themselves, however subtly, in her art. “People have called my painting ‘dark’,” she said. “The bottoms are dark, they have no form,” she conceded. “Some of that is probably (a result of) the fear andppression we experienced. And while I do find that negative, I think it’s important to remember all parts of one’s life. “Learn from it and let it go.” Others, meanwhile, are just catching on to what Haskova is saying through her brushstrokes. Mary Forseth and Michelle Kirkegaard, co-owners of the Whistler gallery, where Haskova will exhibit next month, appreciate the artist's contemporary (but not abstract) style. “We (display) a lot of landscapes and we like to throw in contemporary work to shake that up,” said Forseth. “We love what she’s doing with colour. “There’s almost an old world influence with the colours and the depth of them.”
Haskova first approached the women about selling her work two years ago. “We opened up our e-mail and, honestly, I saw this image,” recalled Forseth. “We get a lot of e-mail. You don’t expect, out of the blue, to get that body of work, and for it to be perfect for the gallery.” Still, the women wanted to view the paintings in person and made the trek down from the mountain to do just that. “You can never tell off e-mail, so we thought, ‘let’s go have a look’.” They left their meeting with Haskova carrying away everything the artist had available, Forseth said. The gallery’s clientele seem to share the women’s enthusiasm, she added. When it came to that first collection, “It didn’t take long to sell them all,” said Forseth. “People love the look and the themes. Her variations on solitary trees have a lot of emotion and depth. “Each painting is accompanied by journal notes and poems. “And people like that they have the opportunity to meet the artist at a show.”
by Brenda Anderson
Her knowledge of Czech, Russian, Slovakian, German and English aside, when Nikol Haskova communicates through her painting, it’s a language everyone can understand — even if the meaning is filtered through the viewers’ experiences.
“In my work I try to capture the really simple things in a landscape — things you’d drive past without noticing,” said the artist, at home in her Walnut Grove studio, where she’s finishing up the last paintings for her first-ever solo exhibit. Titled Glimpse, the 25-piece show will open March 3 at the Adele Campbell Gallery in Whistler. Two main styles predominate the work Haskova will show. Her landscapes, while modern, contain all the expected elements — foreground, horizon, sky, fences, buildings and trees — plenty of trees. These pieces, she says, are generally inspired by places she’s seen in life or in photographs. “There are areas of Langley which are familiar, but won’t be much longer,” said Haskova, alluding to the rapid development taking place in the community. Capturing the beauty of a tree becomes that much more urgent, she said, knowing that once it’s replaced by concrete, it’s gone forever.
But the 34-year-old artist’s signature images, her windows, are what truly set her apart. These are of stylized tree tops, set against the sky, with no horizon visible to lend perspective, as though they are viewed, looking up at an angle, through a window. “My windows are more meditative. “I tend to change those (elements) around to be aesthetically pleasing,” said the artist, who began painting “seriously” about three years ago. Both her landscapes and her more abstract pieces embody a single theme, said Haskova. “It’s about relaxing andtaking a pause — that meditative quality.” Haskova takes great pleasure in “doing something that simply makes people happy and nothing else.” There’s a definite solemnity to her work, however, admitted the artist, who came to Canada 16 years ago from what was then still Czechoslovakia. Life under communist rule was harsh, and while Haskova was still a teenager, her photographer father and artist mother moved the family to the West. “It was scary, but some of the things we’d gone through — it was easy to leave behind. “I’m so thankful to be here, to be Canadian,” she said. “I cried when I got my citizenship.” Still, memories of life behind the Iron Curtain remain, and manifest themselves, however subtly, in her art. “People have called my painting ‘dark’,” she said. “The bottoms are dark, they have no form,” she conceded. “Some of that is probably (a result of) the fear andppression we experienced. And while I do find that negative, I think it’s important to remember all parts of one’s life. “Learn from it and let it go.” Others, meanwhile, are just catching on to what Haskova is saying through her brushstrokes. Mary Forseth and Michelle Kirkegaard, co-owners of the Whistler gallery, where Haskova will exhibit next month, appreciate the artist's contemporary (but not abstract) style. “We (display) a lot of landscapes and we like to throw in contemporary work to shake that up,” said Forseth. “We love what she’s doing with colour. “There’s almost an old world influence with the colours and the depth of them.”
Haskova first approached the women about selling her work two years ago. “We opened up our e-mail and, honestly, I saw this image,” recalled Forseth. “We get a lot of e-mail. You don’t expect, out of the blue, to get that body of work, and for it to be perfect for the gallery.” Still, the women wanted to view the paintings in person and made the trek down from the mountain to do just that. “You can never tell off e-mail, so we thought, ‘let’s go have a look’.” They left their meeting with Haskova carrying away everything the artist had available, Forseth said. The gallery’s clientele seem to share the women’s enthusiasm, she added. When it came to that first collection, “It didn’t take long to sell them all,” said Forseth. “People love the look and the themes. Her variations on solitary trees have a lot of emotion and depth. “Each painting is accompanied by journal notes and poems. “And people like that they have the opportunity to meet the artist at a show.”
