Saskatoon-based, Biliana Velkova has family roots in Bulgaria. Since the mid-1990s, she’s studied visual art in Vancouver, Montreal and Saskatoon. She holds a BFA from Concordia University, and in 2010 she obtained her MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. On Saturday Dec. 6, she’ll be in town to present an artist talk at the Dunlop Gallery’s Sherwood Village Branch for her exhibition Splendid.
Above is a digital print from the show, in which Velkova depicts herself as a Disney-style princess in various wilderness locations. In part, she’s riffing on idealized notions of Canadian identity tied to the land.
As far as our international brand goes, wilderness and Canada are probably regarded as inseparable. But the reality is not so simple. To begin with, we’re largely an urban society now. And the wilderness that we supposedly celebrate is increasingly regarded, by governments of a certain political stripe anyway, as nothing more than a storehouse of resources to be extracted and sold for corporate gain regardless of the impact on the environment and associated plant and animal life.
You can find out more about Splendid here (scroll down to the third item). Velkova’s talk is at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Sherwood Village Library (6121 Rochdale Blvd) with a reception to follow. The exhibition runs until Feb. 4.