Artists + Writers - ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal | Call for Artists

Dina Torrans

Flower compositions are not just about beauty, colours and technical virtuosity. For artists like Dina Torrans, the subject of flowers becomes an investigation into the natural world and its priceless interconnections.

Dina’s floral sculptures look like precious jewellery. Refined to the minute details and characterized by the combination of varied materials, they appear like a precious gift donated by nature. However, the approach of the mixed-media artist is more than just about aesthetic charm. Thanks to their harmonious shapes and proportions, flowers are a source of inspiration, but they also trigger a reflection about their importance in the ecosystem.

For Dina, the observation phase is always a powerful and rewarding experience. She focuses on the design and proportions of flowers and searches for anthropomorphic features.

The sculptures in Dina’s flower series have beautiful and frail connotations but reveal a form of vague melancholy. They are flowers of beautiful gardens but also embody the idea of feeling fragile and trapped in the world of the imagination, distant from tangible reality.

From a technical point of view, Dina’s artistic practice can translate microscopic nature into sculptural form. The artist skillfully combines traditional and contemporary sculptural techniques, using waxes and then casting in bronze or silver through the lost wax process. The lost wax casting, already used in Greek and Roman Art and became famous at the height of the Renaissance, allows for a complete adherence to the natural object, creating a wax expendable model. Using this method, Dina captures fine details of the flower in metal. To this magic, the artist adds a purely human imprint: porcelain, bones, and found objects embellish the sculptural flower, playing with nature and its idea of it.

The references in Dina’s floral series are multiple and interdisciplinary, integrating art and botany, sculpture and natural sciences: from the organic moulds of sculptors such as Henry Moore, capable of synthesizing nature into abstract 20th-century forms, to the millimetre-perfect observation of all naturalists-illustrators, like Ernst Haeckel or the pioneering female entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian. With these names, Dina shares methodic observation and the ability to absorb nature’s infinite and diverse forms.

Dina Torrans has been working as a sculptor and multi-media artist in Toronto for over twenty-five years. Graduated with honours from the Art Centre of Central Technical School, she subsequently worked as an instructor in the Sculpture and Printmaking departments and as a Visiting Artist at numerous workshops and seminars in other academic institutions. Her award-winning artworks have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. They are included in many private and public collections, such as the Canadian Sculpture Centre in Toronto, the Fire Arts in Vermont and the Earth House Hold Studios in California. Dina’s artistic research into the natural and human world reveals an attentive, sensitive eye capable of revealing invisible interconnections to be explored with a magnifying glass.

Dina Torrans is the Gold Artist of the ArtAscent Floral call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Floral issue.

www.dinatorrans.art

Leanne Trivett S., Silver Artist of the 2024 Floral call for artists.

Leanne Trivette S.

Leanne Trivett S. is a digital artist who merges her background in performing arts to create carefully constructed work that resonates with the audience’s inner voices.

Leanne’s collages are soft on the eyes, offering a different form of perception. Her images are good listeners, inspiring viewers to step back and spend time with themselves. Each collage has a distinct tone of voice—easy to tune in and with diverse melodies and themes.

For instance, Leanne’s collage Parade is an openminded yet introverted soul, inviting the discovery of new philosophical thoughts. Hellos is a social butterfly, spreading its colours and encouraging us to encounter each other with an open smile. Afternoon Tea and Opera of the Bouquet evoke a dark and mysterious atmosphere, guiding the audience into creative pathways of thinking and being, allowing them to sense the strong and individual parts of themselves.

Each of Leanne’s collages is a unique element of a botanical constellation that provides care and attention to various human emotions. Her artwork is beautiful to observe, but with time, it takes one on a journey into the wonders of life beyond daily routines and into one’s own creative depths.

Leanne’s work is reminiscent of a modern James Hamilton Brown, a U.S. visual artist who began experimenting with photography and collages in the mid-1940s. Both artists share a play of colours and the liveliness this brings to their art form, though Leanne’s digital collages are more energetic than James Hamilton Brown’s calmer, softer-toned creations. The layering of images in their work transports audiences into a vibrant dance on a summer afternoon at the lake, where the sun gleams through the leaves of an old tree.

Another contemporary visual artist, Maggie West, indulges in portraying large floral sculptures, digital photography, and short films that convey a psychedelic feeling, where the most colourful flowers and blossoms engage in vivid conversations. When combining Maggie West’s high-energy work with James Hamilton Brown’s calm aesthetic, Leanne’s digital collages emerge as a blend of these two visual approaches.

Leanne works with photography and digital tools toexplore what she describes as experimental self-portraiture and emotional abstraction. She has a BFA in Theatre from the Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) in New York City. Her background in theatre heavily influences how she expresses herself through images and photography.

The work of Leanne Trivett S. has been awarded and exhibited worldwide, including at the Los Angeles Centre for Photography, the KFF FotoFest 2024 in Karuizawa, Japan, and the Fotonostrum Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. She was chosen as Winner and Honourable Mention for the 18th and 20th Annual Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for Women Photographers in Barcelona, Spain, in 2022 and 2023. Leanne also enjoys sharing her knowledge and teaches at Santa Fe Workshops in New Mexico and Chicago Botanic Garden in Illinois.

Leanne Trivett S. is the Silver Artist of the ArtAscent Floral call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Floral issue.

https://leannetrivettsphotography.com

Vasu Tolia

Flowers are among the most common subjects in art, yet they are also among the most challenging, exuding symbolic and emotional connotations. Vasu Tolia celebrates flowers as a way to transform everyday things into something sublime and accessible.

It’s natural to appreciate flowers as a manifestation of nature’s wealth of colours. Vasu uses colour as the primary tool in her artwork, exploring it in figurative and abstract compositions defined by open and decorative hues. Floral motifs have freely entered her thematic range. Vasu’s palette is soft, joyful and restful. Vasu seeks to create contemplative and serene art pieces. Is there anything more peaceful and delicate than a blooming flower? Her titles, such as Ethereal and Symphony, eloquently convey the metaphysical ideas she aims to express through her images.

Vasu’s paintings recall the vividness and naivety of folk art. Her stylized flowers resemble those of another artist famous for her floral compositions, Ukrainian selftaught painter Kateryna Bilokur. Bilokur lived in the first half of the 20th century, and Picasso praised her work. Bilokur’s canvases are often united by an enigmatic combination of blue and lilac. In contrast, Vasu’s compositions typically feature gentle turquoise and peach as the dominant hues, bringing both warm and cool tones to her work. Vasu uses an elongated format to enhance the panoramic garden landscape.

The artwork selected for this exhibition juxtaposes meticulously rendered, vibrant floral elements against a backdrop of textured, crackled finishes. The defined lines of the flower petals are matched with loose brushstrokes, creating a dynamic interplay that fosters a palpable visual tension between calmness and movement. This same duality is inherent in any flower—it is both static and in constant movement, fragile yet resilient, similar to many other flowers, yet always unique.

Vasu Tolia is a visual artist and physician whose work has been showcased in numerous solo exhibitions, including Nature at the Posterity Arts and Framing Gallery and This is Every Woman at Brewery Park Gallery. Prestigious institutions such as Baker College and Henry Ford Medical Center have acquired Vasu’s art. Vasu has garnered multiple accolades, including the Circle Foundation for the Arts Masterful Mind Award. In recent years, she has received numerous awards in juried exhibitions, including nine in 2023 alone. Her artwork is displayed in public and private collections across Michigan, further solidifying her impact and presence in the art world.

Vasu Tolia is the Bronze Artist of the ArtAscent Floral call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Floral issue.

www.vasutolia.art