Thea Kovac

medium: painting

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Growth Patterns 1997 Painting	Bouquet 1998 Painting	Lotus 1999 Painting
Water Garden 2001 Painting	Posies 2003 Painting	Summer Solstice Awakening #1 2003 Painting
Summer Solstice Awakening #2 2003 Painting	Tropical Exuberance 2004 Painting	The Strange Familiar #1 2004 Painting
The Strange Familiar 2004 Painting

Contact information
2623 E. Belleview Place
Milwaukee, WI 53211-3829
Email Address: theakovac@sbcglobal.net

Artist statement
Growth patterns. Just before falling asleep. The strange familiar. Because verbal and visual expression share a space deep within me, phrases like these often spring up as inspiration for new work.

Many years ago, "growth patterns" propelled me on a far-ranging exploration of the visible beauty and invisible energy of the botanical world through mixed media and watercolor paintings. Later an unfinished story, "The Worm Queen," and a poem describing the birth and development of a painting led me into my first serious encounters with abstraction and collage.

When I began to experiment with acrylics, the phrase "just before falling asleep" arose. I envisioned the shadowy cavalcade of shifting images that sometimes flicker inside my closed eyelids when I am about to fall asleep. To my surprise, instead of depicting this amorphous twilight threshold, the paintings portrayed a bright, clear, colorful alternative universe that combines elements of geometry, architecture and movement with natural forms.

"The strange familiar" marked a return to botany with an increase in scale: huge blossoms transformed by stylized designs in both watercolor and acrylic. Smaller paintings hint at recognizable forms, but are clearly composed of colored shapes and gestural brushstrokes, forcing the viewer to hold two visual perceptions simultaneously or to rapidly shift from one to the other.

Manipulating color and shape with juicy paint while accessing deep, unpredictable sources of creativity gives me indescribable joy. I hope that by detecting this quality in my finished paintings, viewers connect with the splendor of their own imaginations.

Biography
Thea Kovac left a career in social work in 1986 to attend the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD) and pursue her artistic practice, which she calls The Lost Playground Studio. She is a visual artist, private art coach, workshop leader, and instructor in the Continuing Education (CE) Departments of MIAD and Cardinal Stritch University. She has taught CE courses and led workshops in other settings including Alverno and Carroll Colleges, The Clearing in Ellison Bay and the UW-Green Bay Weidner Center.

She has held several artist residencies in the Milwaukee Public Schools. Under the sponsorship of the Milwaukee Access Telecommunications Authority, she produced an art video with a grant from the Milwaukee Arts Board.

Her studio is located in the Walker's Point area on the south side of Milwaukee. Her paintings can be seen at the Art and Soul Gallery and Katie Gingrass Gallery in Milwaukee.