Tatjana Mirkov-Popovicki
Tatjana's dream as a child was to be an artist. As an only child, she loved to draw and make up little artsy games for herself. Growing up in former Yugoslavia, her family steered her toward education in electrical engineering.
Tatjana in her studio surrounded by her recent body of work titled Lad Love Unfolding (Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Spring 2020)
When she moved to Canada in 1994, she started immersing herself in art. She soaked up the vast Canadian landscape, very different from her native environment. She was in awe with the mountain ranges and coastline of her new homeland and she used her art to help her intimately understand it.
Working on an underpainting for the Salt Spring Sentinel
She began to paint, at first more from her technical side, analyzing and observing, striving to learn the language of the land. Over the years, she grew to love and understand the land and now she feels she can sing its heart song in all its depth and complexities.
Sketching in the Lake O'Hara Park in the Yoho National Park in BC
She has traveled to the mountains and islands, sketching, taking photographs, and looking deeply into the heart of the land. Her bi-line on her website expresses this beautifully:
“The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
Tatjana's home studio in Port Moody
Her West Coast paintings have the uncanny ability to give the same feeling of wordless peace and quiet wonder as much as one can experience from actually being there.
Her mountain scapes thunder with their grand presence and silence. They are like poetry in that there is room to imagine beyond the paint on canvas.
1. Brady's Beach, acrylic, 16x16, 2019 2. Bugaboos Giants, acrylic, 24x30, 2011
3. Winter Trail, acrylic, 20x24, 2018 4. Good Land, acrylic, 36x48, 2019
Tatjana's ability to translate her profound experience of being in nature rests on the firm foundation of mastering her medium and understanding the scenery. But her paintings come from the deep feeling of love toward her subject matter. She can see the composition in her mind’s eye, and sometimes the painting will unfold easily. Even when she has to struggle with it, that experience is appreciated since it's all part of the learning. As she so aptly says, “It’s a long journey and that’s what I really, really love.”
mirkov-popovicki.com