Ivanco Talevski

Ivanco Talevski is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Working with drawing, print, painting, sculpture, and collaborative strategies, the subjects in his work are generated by the notion of being in two places at once — Philadelphia, Penn. and Bitola, Macedonia — through which he evokes questions around memory, belonging, nostalgia, contested borders, and histories, and their persistence and erasure. By existing between two places, two languages, at once, he has turned to drawing as an alternative way to engage with the world.

Drawing has two parallel processes in Talevski’s work. First, it operates as a thinking procedure, an undercurrent that allows for idiosyncratic elements and actions to be brought together and reckoned with, often resulting in multimedia and collaborative projects. Second, he makes drawings that function as a form of poesy, which are unedited, completed in one sitting, and operate as the markers that trace his movement in time and space between two cities, assessing their political and social landscapes to expose vulnerability, evoke empathy, and to reveal multiple histories.

Talevski’s solo and collaborative projects have been shown at The Print Center in Philadelphia, The National Gallery of Macedonia in Skopje, Napoleon (currently Pink Noise) in Philadelphia, Cindi Ettinger Studio in Philadelphia, MC Gallery in NYC, The Prima Center in Berlin, The Cultural Center of Skopje, and The Museum and Institute of Bitola, both in Macedonia. His works have been featured in exhibitions across the globe, including at The International Print Center in New York, the seventh International Printmaking Biennial Douro in Portugal, the 2010 International Print Triennialin Kraków, Poland, Sakima Art Museum in Tokyo; National Taiwan Museum of Art, International Print Triennial in Kraków 2010, Horst-Janssen-Museum in Germany, the Graphic Art of the Balkan Countries,  and Triennale Grenchen in Switzerland.

Talevski is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Fine Arts and Design departments at The Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania.