Tatiana A. Bobko

Artist Statement: I see beauty in the mundane, the random and the discarded. I see in terms of texture, pattern, shadows, light reflections, words, symbolism and unnoticed detail. I am in awe of the intricacy of nature and its many manifestations. I try to incorporate its elaborate patterns alongside manmade creations into my work. I am fascinated by weird angles, perspectives and hidden perfection in everything. I love blurriness defined by sharp blank ink, the elegance of the human curve, the sad grace of abandoned places. I love the texture of things and mixing found images with ink, putting things together in random cohesion, geometric patterns and bright colors. This is an Introspection of my life, my world. These are the things I create because this is who I am. Art is spiritual to me and I work in many different media to express what I feel and how I see the world.

Artist Biography: Russian-Canadian Visual Artist and Creative Writer, Tatiana has been making art and writing as far back as she can remember. Having tried it all, her favorite visual techniques remain collage, drawing and photography, with an ultimate expression of combining all at the same time. She has finished a 3-year intensive Art Education program with Native (Siberia’s native population of Khanty-Mansi) concentration. Course work included native dress making, beading, watercolor, history, mixed media, photography, collage, acrylic painting, art theory, art history and drawing. Since arriving in Canada 22 years ago she has followed a variety of creative pursuits. In the last few years she has been concentrating on working with children and adults as a Visual Arts Instructor, participating in various workshops and classes in mixed media art, photography, graphic design, interior design, drawing and printmaking. Currently she teaches Vision Boarding and Creativity Development/ Spiritual (Therapeutic) Art and paint nights, reads her poetry, writes for a few publications, takes innumerable photographs and creates whatever speaks to her in and around New Westminster.

Tatiana’s artistic philosophy is simple: everything is beautiful, everyone is creative, everything has potential and everything can be used to create art. Favorite themes include: - layering old pieces with new ones, creating an homage to your own timeline - preservation of our stories and the stories of places - observation of light and shadow - random brokenness, imperfection, abandoned and unnoticed things - architectural and industrial harshness, spiked by color - movement and the dance of life - spontaneous creativity - inner development of a being and expressing that through any art form - trees

Tatiana’s hope is to make inanimate objects come alive with use of color, texture and light; objects that are not necessarily noticed or considered beautiful, like a piece of rope, or a reflection of light dancing on your wall on a sunny day. In her opinion, combining different media is a beautiful way to showcase the multi-dimensionality of self.