Artist Statement

Milena (Filipova) Smith was born in Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic) in 1967, just one year before the Russian tanks occupied her country in 1968. Her childhood was challenging, and she grew up in broken and deplorable conditions.

The influence of the Communist Government and events resulting from the regime’s totalitarian rule towards people affected her life. In turn, her work reflects the manipulative treatment of people. Yet, despite facing difficulties during her life, she expresses human humility in her sculptures, paintings and drawings by capturing human beauty, compassion, and behaviour to highlight unity and equality among people. Furthermore, the artist’s experiences with the mystique part of human beings drove her to communicate through her artwork to express the truth.

Smith wants to convey the spiritual element of the human being with sculptures reaching beyond visual perception.
Through personal experiences with OBE, she tries to recollect the stillness and recapitulate the moment of peacefulness that once transferred her soul to a different realm. Smith tries to capture the public’s attention through the installation and prompt the public to resonate with the sound of breath that helped the artist experience the out-of-body phenomenon.