Beata Goik

Statement

Light in my work speaks about spiritual aspects of our existence and about divine and mysterious Presence. The textured and organic emergence of the surfaces relates to our earthly physicality and symbolizes our human struggle with life circumstances and with ourselves. Light penetrates through the texture and offers transformation, a sense of peace and belonging. It reminds us of our true destination. These symbolic images refer to my own spiritual and emotional development and also to the inner experiences of people who share with me their life journey.

Both the light and texture in my work are developed through the complex, layered and mixed-media processes which I have experimented with and learned over the years of my artistic activity. I wanted to achieve relief-like appearances to emphasize depth and dimension and to express complexity of the interior.  

Bio

My artistic development started over 20 years ago in Poland, through the Commercial Art College and Sacral Art College. In 1987, along with my family, I immigrated to Canada where I continued to work as an artist mainly in the Toronto area. I also wrote, co-produced and co-directed a few multi-media performances, based on visual and performing arts, which involved multicultural artists and audiences. In 1997, along with my family, I moved to the USA, where I resided for nearly five years. While in Colorado I graduated with Magna Cum Laude from the University of Colorado Fine Arts, Studio Art program, and had successful individual and group art-shows in Denver. After my return to Canada, in 2001, I established ArtVeritas Visual Art Studio in Oakville, where I taught visual art to people of all ages, preparing students for post-secondary art related programs, and continued to create and exhibit my own artwork. In 2004, I attended York University for a full time Teachers College program and earned a bachelors degree in Education, specializing in Visual Arts and Social Sciences. For over five years, I taught in an international college near Toronto where I developed the entire Visual Arts program for grades 9-12. I also had the opportunity to teach a Visual Art summer program in Italy to mainly Canadian and American high school students. At this point in my life, I decided to put teaching on hold to become a full time artist again. After a successful solo show at Arta Gallery, I was invited to participate as one of the twelve international artists in a sponsored “Painters Symposium and Workshop” in Greece, in May of 2011. Also the Jordan Art Gallery offered me a Guest Artist Exhibition for the month of September 2011.