Art2Muse

Artworks available to view in Sydney

Upcoming Exhibitions

• Art2Muse Exhibition at the Washhouse Gallery, Rozelle, Sydney 12th – 31st August 2008

• Art2Muse Exhibition at the Tom Dunne Gallery, Darlinghurst, Sydney 9th – 21st September 2008

For the latest collection and new series of my exciting paintings, I began a personal journey and challenge in an outback town called Roxby Downs in South Australia. Adjacent to Roxby Downs is a settlement called Andamooka which is famous for its diggings of Australian opal and not far from the infamous Woomera, where an empty memory lingers of its refugee camp and the highlights of scars within our society.

This unique landscape that I have experienced here will remain stored in my memory and will probably keep emerging in my future work. Trying to redefine my own identity whilst being emersed into the outback beauty of fauvist colours like the red, yellow and blue, this wild and unattainable land is part of a brand new experience in which the exploration has only began. The amazing salt lakes formed centuries ago have left their traces in the wild of this untamed land. Leaving the spirit to float untouched and so mightily red. They left white and pure salt foundations stretching for km after km into this outback. Broken into bits and pieces, the land, although dry, is amazingly very much alive. Whilst within there, you are almost intimidated by this vast and huge space, that stretches the mind and the never-ending vision.

I also fell in love with emus, aboriginal name mamjaunga’s. Seeing them, enhanced the meaning of the whole landscape and I bring my twinkle of passion, some urgency and colliding memories together into the world of my inner thought and my own existence.

Not surprisingly many famous Australian artists like Fred Williams, John Olsen, Lloyd Rees, Sydney Nolan, to name a few, have gone here before me and were similarly overcome by the sheer spectacular beauty and we remain comparatively new people in a very old continent with so much looking to do before we can find forms and colour to explain this landscape in poetic terms.

My work is about being head over heels in love with this timeless landscape.

- Alisa Teletovic

Alisa Teletovic has taken a long journey from war-torn Bosnia to Roxby Downs in outback Australia and recently to Perth. After experiencing several harrowing years of war, Alisa fled Bosnia when she was 18. It was a difficult decision to make, especially as she had to leave her mother and brother behind. “ There was no option, when I left the war had been going on for years… when things got really bad, soldiers were coming into our houses and taking gold, TVs, radios and stuff like that and they were carrying guns”, she said. After the family was robbed one night, Alisa gathered a few possessions and boarded a bus that was to take her to Austria. “It was very risky to leave because I had just turned 18 and I didn’t have all of my identification paperwork”, she said, In those times girls would just disappear, so I was really lucky”.

Three years later, Alisa moved to Melbourne, where she met and fell in love with her husband. There she stayed for a few years while she completed a university degree in fine art and also electronic design and interactive media.

In Roxby Downs Alisa fell head over heels in love with the sunburnt landscape, and she soon rediscovered her desire for painting and began translating that passion onto canvas. Her most recent inspiration came from a chance encounter with an emu on Andamooka Road, which inspired the beginning of a love affair with the flightless birds. “Psychologically I find a connection with emus, it’s something about them and family, I like to look into the way they live.”

After years of uncertainty and change, Alisa finds comfort in the serenity of the desert, and in the vastness in the landscape, as it represents both how far she has come, and also all she has lost. “Land for me is grounding, it is stability and trying to belong in one place. I was forced to leave my home so now I am always between countries, I feel so much a part of Australia and I feel also part of my childhood in Bosnia. But y grown-up life is here and I feel this is where I have really been, although sometimes I am torn between mourning what I have left behind, but also celebrating what I have here.”

These days Alisa’s journey can be found on canvas, as her emotions and feelings are expressed in an array of detailed and abstract colour. “I have my heart on the paintings, I’m not ashamed of that,” she said of her art. “I paint what I love and what I have within me, and for people to appreciate that and have my work in their homes, for me that is the best reward imaginable.”
- Kristina Meredith, Roxby Downs Sun.

Education

2000 Advanced Diploma in Electronic Design and interactive Media, RMIT University,Melbourne
1998 Bachelor of Art, RMIT University, Melbourne

Solo Exhibitions

2007 Roads to home, Cusp Gallery Melbourne
2005 Landscapes of Memory. Wyndham Cultural Centre, Melbourne
2000 Frozen in the Moment. Wharf Gallery, Melbourne
1988 Escape from Reality. Mostar, Europe

Group Exhibitions

2008 Canterbury Art Show, Victoria

2007 Journey of the soul, Port Art Gallery, Melbourne
Small works, BSB Gallery, Melbourne
Art Fair Melbourne
Dreaming of the home, Gasworks, Foyer Gallery, Melbourne
Home, Precinct Gallery, Roxby Downs, SA
Keep it in the ground, Collingwood gallery, Melbourne
Homely/Unhomely, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
Displacement and Alienation, McCulloch Gallery, Melbourne
2006 Sister's Ships, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne
Xmas Auction Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne
Fabulous. Wall Gallery, Melbourne
In our Shoes. Artholes Gallery, Melbourne
Beta Sigma Phi Art Collectables, Melbourne
St Kevin’s College 35 Art Competition, Melbourne
The Collectors Exhibition, Steps Gallery, Melbourne
Stock Room, Vanguard Gallery, Melbourne
Canterbury Art Competition, Melbourne
Camberwell Art Competition Show, Melbourne
Her Light in Native Colors. Manningham Gallery, Melbourne
Qenos Art Competition Show. Altona, Melbourne
Annual Art Show. Werribee, Melbourne
Postcard Show. Linden Gallery, Melbourne
Contemporary Paintings. Events Centre, Melbourne
2005 Celebration. Box Hill Community Centre, Melbourne
Art Bourney, Melbourne

Welcome to my Home. Immigration Museum, Melbourne
2000 This way Up. RMIT, Melbourne
Formally known as Prints. 101 Gallery, Melbourne
1998 Geelong Print Prize, Geelong

Awards/Prizes

2007 First Prize in Mixed media, Beta Sigma Art Phi Show, Melbourne
2006 2nd prize Oils and Acrylics, Werribee Art Show
2006 2nd prize Mixed Media, Altona Art Show
1988 First Award for all High Schools in Bosnia and Hercegovina
1988 Third Award for up to 25 years old in Bosnia and Hercegovina

Publications

2007 Local Artist wins prize in Melbourne, Roxby Downs Sun
2006 Have no fear with art near, Cassie Maher, Times
New Home Inspiration Jessica Hogan Star, Melbourne
Canvassing culture Candice Wyatt, Times
2005 Getting Settled Werribee Banner, Melbourne
Human art by Azra Jasika, Bosna Magazine, Melbourne
Magazine “Most”, Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina
Book of artists “Likovna pozornica Mostara” by Salko Saric Bosnia and Hercegovina
2000 Doors open to art, Melissa Arch, Fairfax, Melbourne

Collections

Wyndham Cultural Centre, Melbourne
Events Centre, Melbourne
Box Hill Community Centre, Melbourne
Embassy of Bosnia, Canberra
Public Art Building Mostar, Bosnia and Hercegovina