Meet Minka

Jasmine Kukic – Collage Artist

Minka is close to heart – to me and now to all of us. A compatriot and friend who lived and worked in Ottawa as professional artist for over 20 years before moving back to Belgrade. 

Jasminka is a collage artist.  She is also a solemate…in our shared interests in psychology, philosophy, symbolic and subconscious – all deeply ingrained in, and perhaps a source of, her surrealist collages.

At parties in Ottawa, we stole moments to discuss Jung and brain. How my work on Alzheimer’s disease is progressing. Her upcoming exhibits, here, at home, or in Belgrade, our other home, and all over the world. Superficial, small talk really, with a quiet understanding that there is a deeper thread to it…and, somehow, this link came back recently, strong, despite geographical separation.

Jasminka is also a storyteller, both visual and verbal – each of her collages is a narrative of subconscious and symbolic, personal and universal – she speaks about each as a story, of self-search, effort to realize the vision; through her narration, paintings are brought to life in a tour of hidden meanings of symbols she meticulously studied. Suddenly, our intuitive appreciation of the scene – unexpected, weird, out worldly – becomes clearer, enlightened with understanding and realization of the depth of thought and emotion that went into its assembly. Left brain and right brain together.

This reconnection was a blessing – at the time of our paper games and dreams of a ‘grand’ joint collage – an accomplished artist in this medium sharing with us is both learning and joy. We could not have had a better hope for inspiration.

The theme of this first introduction is familiar and explored before by all of us, the co-existing multitudes fused in who we are, individually. Coincidentally, the title of our upcoming installation is ‘All in One’.