Issue 3.44 (Summer 2021) is off to the presses, and we are excited to feature Russna Kaur as our cover artist.

My paintings are kind of made of fragments, and I think of my life as fragments too, as very specific, different experiences, and painting becomes a way for me to piece all of them together. If you take the time to reflect back on your life there’s that common thread or line – an underlying thing that’s holding it together. And so I feel like that’s kind of what my paintings are – all these separate thoughts that are trying to come together and these lines laid on top that are the composition, integral to the work and holding it all together.

-Russna Kaur in conversation with Burrard Arts Foundation

Russna Kaur (b. 1991, Toronto; lives and works in Vancouver) explores how the surface of a painting can reveal a narrative that addresses complex personal and cultural histories. Her large-scale and multi-surface paintings are developed through rigorous explorations of colour, text, digital sketches, and mixed media.

Kaur graduated from the University of Waterloo earning a BA with a major in Fine Arts: Studio Specialization (2013) and the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2019) where she received a Master in Fine Arts.

Kaur was awarded the Gathie Falk Visual Arts Scholarship, the University Women’s Club of Vancouver Graduate Scholarship, the Audain Faculty of Art Graduate Teaching Fellowship and was shortlisted for the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canada Graduate Scholarship. Kaur has been an artist-in-residence at the Burrard Arts Foundation in Vancouver and the Centrum Emerging Artist Residency in Port Townsend, Washington.

She is the recipient of the 2020 Takao Tanabe Painting Prize for emerging painters in British Columbia and the 2020 IDEA Art Award. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation. She is currently a sessional instructor at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Selected works by Russna Kaur are featured in our forthcoming Issue 3.44 (Summer 2021). To view and read more from Russna Kaur and our other 3.44 contributors pre-order the issue here or subscribe today to receive this issue plus two more delivered to your door!