MIRANDA RUMINA (short biography)

Miranda Rumina is a multimedia artist, who has been working in different media - painting, sculpture, video, installations, digital art, literature, photography and design since 1990. As an internationally established multimedia artist she has had numerous solo and group exhibitions and multimedia presentations; some of them in the most important institutions in Slovenia and abroad: National Museum of Slovenia, Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana Castle, Konstanz Town Hall (Germany), Luleå Modern Gallery (Sweden), Pavilion Of Tibetan Culture, Pitanga, Kalakendra in Auroville (India) Sanctuary, Koh Lanta (Thailand)...

In 2003 she was selected to exhibit at the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, Citta di Firenze (Florence Biennale, Italy) and she participated in the Luleå Sommar Biennal (Sweden). Her first novel, Lydia, was published in the USA in 2002 and it is available in all online bookstores as a printed book and e-book. The publication of her third novel Codex in 2004 was accompanied by several multimedia performances and exhibitions for example Ice Installation Codex.

In 2008 Miranda Rumina and her partner Dalaj Eegol published a picture book for children The Little Mermaid and her Dolphin and set up a light installation by the passenger terminal of the Port of Koper (Slovenia). In 2011 iPad interactive book has been designed together with Matej Ukmar.

In 2004 she was awarded at the International ExTempore in Izola.

Miranda Rumina has been the Art Director of the Kerubin Art Society for several years. She has traveled, worked and lived in several countries worldwide: Italy, England, Greece, USA, Thailand, India, Germany, Australia, Vanuatu and elsewhere. From 2004 to 2008 she was the manager of Kerubin Gallery in Izola. The artist lives and creates in the international town in making Auroville in the southeast of India and in Izola, Slovenia. She has realized 150 art projects.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Miranda Rumina was born in 1959 in Celje, Slovenia. Although born into a family, she was raised in a parish by her grandmother and an old priest whose teachings were more about the path of heart and love than about an abstract God. She had no company of her peers so she spent most of her time in unspoiled nature. From that early period she has preserved the gift to see the invisible.

A talented student, she attended various activities at school and out of it - singing, playing instruments, dancing and painting, math contests and sports. With her organizing skills, she was a leader in many areas, from art and literature to mundane life. In 1980 she graduated from economics at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana and continued with studies of English and Italian language and literature at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. In 1981, 1982 and 1984, with a grant from the Italian government, she studied the Italian language and history of art in Siena.

In 1990 she studied rebirthing and voice dialogue techniques and got a degree for rebirthers from the London Institute of Rebirthing. From 1990 to 1994 she worked intensely as a professional therapist and artists; more than 3500 people participated in her workshops and art projects during these years.

The famous Slovene painter Boris Zaplatil introduced her to multimedia when he saw her first acrylic reliefs. At that time, the story was more important than painting. So her first exhibition was a huge multimedia performance held in the central cultural house of Ljubljana, Cankarjev dom. Since 1991 she has been engaged in multimedia projects, sculpting, painting, video performances, macro photography and design. Her studies in art were influenced by many great contemporary artists, among others the painter Zvest Apolonio and the sculptor Lujo Vodopivec. But most of all she admired the artist Klavdij Tutta, already internationally known at that time. In artistic sense, entering his field left the strongest impact on her in early nineties, later similarly the sculptor Jakov Brdar introduced her into brass sculpture.

In the female circle, she mostly appreciated Marina Abramović who came from a similar background of former Yugoslavia. She had an interview with Marina during her latest show in Ljubljana. Metka Krašovec was her role model, too, but from another point of view: the use of colour in her Mexican period influenced her a lot. Now she identifies most strongly with the work of the Japanese artist Mariko Mori and her inner teacher, Björk.

In nine years of active work, she developed a unique technique in which her paintings were three-dimensional acrylic reliefs, sometimes alluding to sculptures protruding more and more out of the paintings. That took her towards glass sculpting which she started in 1997. Tanja Pak introduced her to this technique. Miranda cooperates with the master of glass blowing Dragoljub Mitrovič and his crew in the glass school factory in Rogaška Slatina, Slovenia. She also studied and worked in Murano, Venice.

In 1992 her autobiographical novel Lydia was published. It is now published in the USA, too. In 1993 she presented her project Miranda's Artistic Angel Cards at the National Museum of Slovenia. This lead to a nine-year long project for peace that spread around the planet. In 1994 her second book Angels was published and accompanied with a performance at Cankarjev dom. She has had thirty solo exhibitions and several multimedia presentations, some of them at the most important institutions in Slovenia and abroad. A lot of them were in rather unusual places: in a castle tower, a chapel, a staircase of a church, an arboretum, a shopping centre, a mill. She was the author of several projects in which she cooperated with many other artists: Matej Filipčič, Tomaž Pandur, Huberto Široka, Klementina Golija, Marjeta Grošelj and Romi Bukovec, among others. In the last years she has mostly expressed herself through glass sculpting, collage, photography, computer graphics and multimedia performances. She has published several catalogues with art critiques by established art critics.

She has followers who are starting with their own art work after completing trainings in Zen, among them Matej Ukmar and her partner Dalaj Eegol.

In 2003 she was selected to exhibit at the Biennale Internazionale dell’Arte Contemporanea, Citta di Firenze, Italy – Florence Biennale and she successfully participated in the Luleå Sommar Biennal, Sweden where she met Japanese artists Hideaki Sasaki and Mamoru Abe who have influenced her work immensely. For the last 10 years she has shared her work with Hideki Sasaki who also helped her select works for some exhibitions.

In 2004 her third novel Codex was written in three months, published and accompanied by several multimedia performances and exhibitions, among others Ice Installation Codex. She published her first art calendar in December 2004 with a huge exhibition of nudes She is Shakti – Hommage to Gustav Klimt. In 2004 she got awarded at international ExTempore in Izola. She had an Kerubin Art Gallery and Kerubin Art Society on the Slovenian coast from 2003 to 2006. In 2005 she did a huge project Manhattan N.Y. Zen on three locations in Izola, Ljubljana and New York with 11 other prominent Slovenian artists. She also conducted several art workshops and multimedia presentations of her book Codex and her and her husband’s fairy tale for children The Little Mermaid and Her Dolphin, which she also made into an interesting interactive book for iPhones and iPads.

In 2006 she moved to Auroville, an international township in South India, where she designed and founded Kerubin Art Center. In Auroville she met several artists from the whole world, including Jyoti Naoki Eri from Japan, whose portrait and art interview she created. From 2006 till present she has had several exhibitions and projects mainly in Slovenia and India (The Pavilion of Tibetan Culture, Pitanga, Kala Kendra in Auroville, Art & Soul Art Gallery in Chennai, India).

All her work is deeply connected to nature and ecology. She was the ambassador of the action Let's clean Slovenia in one day in 2010 and Let's clean the world in one day in 2012. For the past year and a half she has been working on a sustainable eco-art housing project and art park ZEN+ iArt Eco Park. At the beginning of this year she successfully accomplished international global art-peace project Micro Ideas For Macro Peace In 2013 that was also presented on crowdfunding websites RocketHub and Indiegogo. She has traveled, worked and lived in several countries worldwide: Italy, England, Greece, Germany, Thailand, India, USA, Australia, Vanuatu and others. She currently lives and works in Slovenia, Europe and spends winters in different countries, mostly in her beloved Asia.

For years she has been very active with her art diary on Facebook, MySpace,Twitter and Instagram. She is also a blogger.