Article about me for Ajax Pickering News Advertiser by Allan O'Marra!

(May 2015)

Vera Malitskaya opens doors to her soul

Making art for Vera Malitskaya is not about following fashions or trends, but about reflecting spiritual conversations with herself and with friends—even with the unseen. Dreams, visions, deep self-examination and conversational exchanges with like-minded souls are the fodder for her acrylic on canvas paintings. The titles of her works, e.g.: Never Lose Hope, Passion, Redemption, Emerging, Mysterious, Unbound, provide a window to the meaning she derives and reflects to her world in conceiving and creating them.

Born of Russian lineage into a family of professional architects in Uzbekistan, Malitskaya studied painting, drawing and composition at art college in Tashkent. Then, after a brief stint at freelance graphic design, she continued her studies at the National Institute of Art and Design. After a period of continued art experimentation—and, ultimately, feeling frustrated by the conservative restrictions on painting subjects and artistic expression in her native land—Vera decided to broaden her art horizons by coming to Canada, to Ajax as a live-in caregiver in 2012.

Once her committed work period here was completed, Malitskaya applied for and received permanent resident status and began to work at freelance graphic design and making fine art in earnest. She is in the process of fashioning a circle of artists friends and resources and display opportunities in efforts to support her burning drive to express her deepest feelings and learnings to a wider audience. Her first exhibition experience was in early 2013 at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto in a group show called Mixed Art and Music. She followed that up with participation in the Colour of Life group show at Cultural Expressions Art Gallery in Ajax in November of last year. A small solo show at Stevenson Farm B & B followed early this year. And in April Vera collaborated with photographer Stephen Milne to create a series of photography based artworks for the Dark Room 4.0 exhibition in Toronto.

The diminutive, passionate and vivacious artist is highly excited about her potential to engage in making and showing art in her new adopted land. She plans to look for opportunities to paint and create outdoor and public installations, her ideal fantasy project being the creating of a mural in a Toronto subway station, an installation that would fulfil her wish to reach a wide audience who would never see her work in formal gallery circumstances.

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