Home and Away | Надалеч и вкъщи
July 17, 2025
-
August 31, 2025
Home and Away | Надалеч и вкъщи explores imagined cityscapes and natural forms, reflecting Iva Staykova’s experience between two cultures. The title inverts “Home and Away” into Bulgarian “Надалеч и вкъщи” (Away and at Home), acting as a conceptual mirror of in-betweenness present throughout the works.
Through dreamlike paintings, Staykova fuses architectural fragments from Sofia and Vancouver into hybrid facades that feel familiar yet resist fixed identity. In dialogue with these, depictions of twisting roots and organic forms speak to memory, inheritance, and growth. Together, the works express “home,” not as a static place, but a fluid landscape where the search for belonging is ongoing.
About the Artist:
Iva Staykova (she/her) is a traditional artist raised in Vancouver, BC, with roots tracing back to Sofia, Bulgaria. She traverses themes of growth, isolation, and adaptation to specific environments through the medium of painting. Specifically, she uses oil paint when creating something “alive” and acrylic paint for manmade imagery. In her works, she illustrates the dichotomy between nature and environment, both playing a role in who we are and how we develop as individuals. Staykova takes great inspiration from artists like Edward Hopper; they both create artworks that are uncanny snapshots of real life, using a simple style with a minimal color palette. By sharing her own stories, she aims to celebrate vulnerability, invite conversation, and foster communion and healing. As our world becomes more dynamic, complex, and continuously evolving, Iva reaches to her roots to find comfort, strength, solitude, and peace. Staykova is a recipient of the 2025 Kwi Am Choi Scholarship at PoMoArts.
About the Kwi Am Choi Scholarship:
Established in 2007, the Kwi Am Choi Exhibition Scholarship is an annual award of $2,000 that recognizes an emerging BC artist between the ages of 18 and 32, and is designed to fund the costs of new artwork creations and mounting a solo exhibition at PoMoArts. This initiative provides recent graduates and students currently enrolled in Fine Arts programs at recognized post-secondary institutions in Canada with the opportunity to display their work in a public art gallery, receive curatorial mentorship, and network with other artists and art professionals. Learn more at pomoarts.ca/get-involved/kwi-am-choi-scholarship
