Biliana Velkova's Fake Plastic Trees at the Kenderdine

KENDERDINE ART GALLERY
University of Saskatchewan
Biliana Velkova: fake plastic trees
Curated by Leah Taylor

September 18 - December 4, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, September 18 at 8:00pm
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 17 at noon, Gordon Snelgrove Gallery, U of S

Fake plastic trees purposes Biliana Velkova’s observations on the branding and commodification of nature. She glamourizes, exploits and complicates the notion of nature as artifice, directly referencing tourist tropes found throughout the Saskatchewan prairies and Alberta’s Rocky Mountains.

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, Velkova lived under the Communist regime, immigrating to Canada in 1990 with her family at the age of fifteen. Her memories of communism have deeply impacted the way in which she perceives the ‘West,’ shaping how she locates herself as a Bulgarian Canadian. A lack of access to consumer products during her formative years has led her to interrogate issues of capitalism, branding, appropriation and feminization.

Biliana Velkova is a Vancouver based artist, her practice incorporates photography, performance and installation to explore issues of consumerist culture, diaspora and social identity. Velkova earned an MFA from the University of Saskatchewan in 2010, and a BFA from Concordia University in 1999. She is currently the Arts Coordinator for the City of New Westminster, prior to that she was Executive Director of PAVED Arts in Saskatoon. Velkova also recently developed an artist residency program in Bulgaria called Sofia Art Residency.

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