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Iliana Helena Jordanov is currently and happily settled in Perth, Western Australia. She has graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan University with a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Art) and Master of Arts (Creative Arts). As a student, she was encouraged to tackle and experiment with as many mediums, techniques and styles as possible. Due to this freedom of experimentation, her practice has turned into a journey of discovery. |
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| Iliana’s fascination, or rather compulsive obsession, with pattern in visual art practice has probably derived from her mixed Slavic (Polish and Bulgarian) background. Being born in Poland in 1980, she had the privilege of spending hot summer months with her father’s family in Bulgaria and cold winter months in Poland. Both sides were in competition with each other, spoiling her rotten with old beautifully illustrated folktales, songs and deeply rooted superstitions of the spiritual world. However, it was her parents that introduced Iliana into the world of art. All this had taken place with the background of the slowly disintegrating communistic power. |
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| Due to the upheavals in Poland Iliana’s parents decided to leave the turmoil behind and relocate to the other side of the world. Traveling throughout Europe and New Zealand, they finally decided to settle down in Western Australia. |
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| After completing her master’s degree on Decorator or Narrator: A Contextualisation of Slavic and Australian Pattern Making and its Relationship to My Painting Practice she suddenly had the urge to travel back to Europe. Iliana believed that it would be a nice way to escape from books, libraries and computers. By selling her car and rolling up the old sleeping bag she decided to move to Austria. Her aim was to study German and do some elective units at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna. From there she had the opportunity to travel throughout Europe. Iliana’s short stay in Europe has enabled her to keep on re-examining intercultural practice in art and the differences and similarities that exist in pattern between Slavic and other western cultures. After two years of traveling, working, studying and partying she ran out of money and started to miss the hot Australian sun. Iliana wished to go back home. |