I love to record in paint the significance of a place, the certainty of geography - something about a particular landscape that makes our presence there remarkable. Whether painting forests or marine landscapes, I search for the innate character and perennial wisdom in nature’s roots, structures, and relics. I paint the vitality and authority of nature as an antidote to city-dwelling in which our lives are fenced in, surveilled, and conventionalized. I live in Toronto, but frequently escape for perspective.

I was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina, in 1987. After living through the siege of my birthplace, I fled with my parents to the Adriatic seacoast of northern Croatia in 1994. A two-year interlude by the seashore brought peace and contentment to my family. Many years later, I drew inspiration from these childhood memories of shells, rocks, and intertidal life - imagery that continues to inform my art.

We immigrated to Toronto in 1996 and started life anew. After graduating from Branksome Hall, where I was encouraged to pursue writing and fine art, I studied art history at the University of Toronto, Trinity College, specializing in Renaissance art. My artist father, Ciba Karisik, shared his knowledge and wisdom with me over many years, and it was with him that I developed my studio practice. I continued my art education with art appraisal studies through the International Society of Appraisers (ISA) and drawing at the Toronto School of Art (TSA).

From 2010 to 2020, I worked in the commercial gallery world, first with the Odon Wagner Gallery and then with Loch Gallery, dealing in Canadian and International historical, post-war, and contemporary art. In addition to my eight years in the gallery world, I worked with Birt Fine Art Services. We provided specialized art-related services, including art installations, comprehensive and personalized collections inventory, managing conservation and framing needs, deaccessioning individual artworks or whole collections, facilitating private sale transactions, and coordinating appraisals. My involvement in the art business and collections management supplemented my art practice for a long time, but recently, I have placed my painting above all else.

Photography naturally plays a big part in my painting process as I rely on reference images for my landscapes. I typically begin a composition with a gestural drawing in graphite or pastel, followed by an oil sketch in a small format. Finally, I will settle on a larger-scale canvas or panel. My influences are many, but my imagination is planted in the Western landscape tradition, from the Romantics to 19th-century Scandinavian painting to the Canadian Group of Seven.

Represented by Ingram Gallery in Toronto.