Karen Oremuš is currently resident in the United Arab Emirates where she teaches painting, drawing and printmaking at Zayed University. Oremuš, a recipient of the Croatian Women of Influence Award, was supported at the exhibition by participants of a conference held in Zagreb by the Croatian Women’s Network of Toronto.
An exhibition of the work of Canadian painter of Croatian extraction Karen Oremuš, an associate professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises of Abu Dhabi, opened in Gornja Stubica on the 10th of March. The Retrospective: Handicrafts, Mementoes, Personal Archaeology and Renewal exhibition is organised by the Croatian Heritage Foundation and the Museums of Hrvatsko Zagorje and was declared open by Krapina Zagorje County Prefect Željko Kolar.
“[Karen] was born in Canada but has never forgotten her roots in the Zagorje region and the town of Stubica. We need to make greater use of this wealth of a diverse upbringing and culture brought to us by Croatians from around the world in our daily lives,” said County Prefect Kolar, adding that he was impressed with the exhibition. Kolar congratulated the artist and presented a gift of traditional Zagorje region products.
Karen Oremuš is currently resident in the United Arab Emirates where she teaches painting, drawing and printmaking at Zayed University. Her work focuses on the motifs of the family, the past, heritage and memory, but also on war, sickness, natural catastrophes and human metamorphosis. In the wake of the Homeland War of Independence she worked as a volunteer for three years in reconstruction projects in Croatia, where she has a broad circle of friends and relatives. The exhibition in Gornja Stubica is a symbolic homecoming in which she has presented her relatives, people she has emotionally connected with and all art enthusiasts in the Zagorje region with a retrospective of her work.
Joining County Prefect Željko Kolar at the opening of the exhibition at the Museum of Peasant Uprisings were Dragutin Žiljak, envoy of the Mayor of Zagreb, Oroslavlje Mayor Ivan Tuđa, who, as a painter himself, gave his commentary of the work, and Đurđica Labaš, president of the Municipal Council of Gornja Stubica. Also on hand for the opening were director Marin Knezović and other staffers of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, and participants of a conference held this week in Zagreb by the Croatian Women’s Network of Toronto and the recipients of the prize conferred by the association. The painter is herself a recipient of the Croatian Women of Influence Award.
(www.zagorje-international.hr)
Photos by: Snježana Radoš
