She studied at Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto; Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul, Turkey; and Chelsea College of Art and Design (University of the Arts London). She is also an alumna of Goodenough College in London, England.
Whether with portraits, which she terms "faces", architecture, referred to as "build" works, landscapes or still life images, Kulenovic's focus is to capture an ambience or psychological state. She deliberately explores ambiguity, and in her approach to the painted surface she works in glazed layers as well as destructive techniques to create images evoking a particular atemporal context. Although so very different in subject, the works have the same aura of loneliness, stillness and desire.
Her influences range from sculpture and painting to architecture, photography and film, and include Roman death masks, 19th century daguerreotype photography, documentary films, stills from damaged motion pictures, Eugène Atget, Margaret Bourke-White, Rembrandt, Turner and Francis Bacon.
Edward Lucie-Smith wrote the following about Kulenovic's work: "No-one could describe Maya Kulenovic's paintings as 'photographic', but their place in the realist tradition is nevertheless secure. Her work is realist in the way that Rembrandt and Goya are realist. They attempt to explore the essence of human existence, and often come up with uncomfortable truths. These truths are conveyed through paintings that fall into very specific categories, related to the old hierarchy of genres that was discarded by the pioneering Modernists, in Kulenovic's work we find still life paintings, portraits (of a sort), landscapes and architectural compositions"
The still lifes, the architectural compositions, the faces and the landscapes are all, in their essence, attempts to identify and present a particular state of being. This quality is, as Edward Lucie-Smith states, "The thing that makes her work so haunting, and so unlike the work of any other artist of her own generation that I can immediately think of".
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Maya Kulenovic. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Ms. Maya Kulenovic |
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| Levanter 2010 |
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| Man of stars 2011 |
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| Nebula 2011 |
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| Opiate 2011-12 |
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| Ash 2012 |
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| Ephemeris 2012 |
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| Town of shades 2013 |
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| Isola 2015-16 |
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| Wolf 2015-16 |
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| Reservoir 2016 |
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| Corrosion 2017 |
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| Figure of Rain 2017 |
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| From a Dream 2017 |
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| Grasslands Delta 2017 |
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| Hanas wait 2017 |
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| Hypnosis 2017 |
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| Persistence 2017 |
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| Tower 2017 |
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| Orchard shudder 2017-18 |
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| Aperture 2018 |
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| Banquet 2018 |
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| Benjamin 2018 |
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| Blackout 2018 |
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| Blackout court 2018 |
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| Farmland 2018 |
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| First light 2018 |
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| Grasslands locus 2018 |
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| Nocturne 2018 |
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| Paris canyon 2018 |
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| Seas end 2018 |
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| Vienna 2018 |
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| Windward 2018 |
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| East chamber 2019 |
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| Interlude No. 1 2019 |
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| Interlude No.6 2019 |
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| Intersection n.d. |
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