Born in
Stoupcy, a small town West of Miensk, in 1936, Ivonka Symaniec-Survilla
spent only eight years of her life in her native Belarus. After a
dramatic exodus through Eastern Prussia, she lived in Denmark, France and
Spain before moving to Canada in 1969. Ivonka Symaniec-Survilla is
the daughter of Uladzimir
Symaniec, also a painter and a proud Belarusian, who settled in France
with wife Evelina and their two children. She moved to Spain after
marrying another Belarusian, Janka Survilla. Their two daughters,
Hanna and Paulinka, were born in Madrid.
Although
she spent most of her life outside Belarus and studied art in Paris, Symaniec-Survilla's
thematic choices and the serene quality of her craftmanship make her art
essentially Belarusian.
Oil painting
and drawing (Indian Ink, charcoal, lead, sanguine) have always been her
favorite mediums, although between 1979 and 1986, she dedicated most of
her time to print-making (etching, woodcuts, lithography). She has
participated since 1951 in more than 30 solo or group exhibitions.
The 1986
Chernobyl catastrophe put a stop to her creative endeavors; for six years
she was not able to find interest in artistic creation, devoting all her
free time to the Canadian Relief Fund for Chernobyl Victims in Belarus,
which she founded with husband Janka and a small group of friends, and
has chaired since 1989.
Since
her trip to Belarus in 1992, she has produced several works and is presently
working on a large painting, Adradzennie.
