Opening Night: April 4th
On Display Until April 26th

Form and colour have long been a language all their own for Milos Milidrag. He fled his country, war-ravaged Yugoslavia, in 1997 to live in Winnipeg. The shockwaves of his past continue to ripple through his work. In his latest exhibit Forgotten Flowers, Milidrag conjures his narrative using symbols - a woman (his muse of inspiration), a bird (freedom), or at times a fish (silence) and flowers (our frequently forgotten values).

Featureless and nameless, the female figure stands in solemn contrast to his energetic palette. Stoic in stature, she draws her emotion from the colours and patterns that surround her. To Milidrag she is a symbol of a life left behind, created from the remnants of memory.

The bird that flies among Milidrag’s patterns is a symbol of freedom. It communicates a lighter side of his work floating carefree within each canvas. When Milidrag seeks to convey the feeling of quiet in his work he will transform the bird into a fish.

The fish is the spiritual symbol of silence before evil. To him it is the hush of a small creature, before the beast. To finish each piece Milidrag delicately paints flowers to offer a representation of the neglected values of life. Luminous and beautiful when in full bloom, the blossoms are also fleeting and ephemeral.

Milidrag’s uses each of these elements together, creating work that becomes “art as language.” His pictorial syntax involves the viewer emotionally and intellectually. Each piece contains multiple levels of composition and sentiment. The paintings convey spiritual piety and the complexity of human emotion. To create this he eschews reality in favour of a universal language of colour and abstraction. Milidrag’s sensitivity for tone and composition fuse with his poet’s mind making each work surpass cultural and physical boundaries.