casi tankó (she/her) is a Budapest-born Montréal-based Romanian-Canadian visual artist. Her practice is moved by magic realism, symbolism, nuance, flow, interconnection, energy, and contemplation, offering an aesthetic window into a spatial patterning of these. One could say her creative approach belongs to a world of visionary imagination and sibylline dream, weaving painterly spells of awestruck wonder in honour of light, the mysterious void, all that is celestial, as well as nature’s quintessential elements.
Flower Meditation (Quartz)
Mixed media art piece containing real pressed flowers and leaves collaged onto canvas then painted over in oil. The offered image depicts the leaves and flowers floating in a glowing spectral space. Concentric rings of soft painted colours glow together, gently saturated in hue. At the centre is a real 4-leaf clover painted over in white. It is held within a white ellipse, the ellipse offering the suggestion of the initial void space from which the clover is birthed - a quartz crystal. The clover's stem is slightly serpentine in shape, and surrounding the clover are other real leaves and flowers that are painted over with the same colour of light they are contained within. Moving outwards from the white centre is an elliptic ring of light yellow, then one of green, then another of aqua blue, then finally lavender spreading out toward the artwork's edges, following the natural order of a rainbow. The collaged flowers and leaves feel intentionally placed on the canvas, as if each one suggests its very own purpose within the whole composition, drawing some kind of constellation around the central clover. Although the colours are vibrant, everything is soft and easy on the eyes, delicate in their given gestures. There is a subtle play of light and shadow as well as depth given that the collaged leaves and flowers offer a subtle sculptural quality in the places where they protrude from the canvas.
I, casi tankó, recognize and observe the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation as the sovereign keepers of the lands and waters of the place I live, work from, and call home. The island called ‘Montréal’ is known as Tiohtià:ke in the language of the Kanien’kehá:ka, and was a gathering place for many First Nations including the Omàmiwininì, Algonquin people. I acknowledge that this island is unceded Indigenous land surrounded by unceded Indigenous water, and engage with the lands and waters with wholehearted respect for the stories they carry. I am incredibly thankful to be here, and encourage everyone to engage with the lands and waters with an informed approach, one of utmost respect and gratitude for them and their keepers.