Vessna Perunovich

Vessna Perunovich is a Canadian / Serbian visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario and Belgrade, Serbia.

She was born in 1960 in Zaječar, Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia. Her father was originally from Montenegro and her mother was from Serbia, born in North Macedonia. She earned her B.F.A in 1984 at the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. She earned her M.F.A. also from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Belgrade in 1987. She immigrated with her family (husband and daughter) to Toronto in 1988.

In 2004, she was invited to the University of Guelph in Ontario to guest lecture. In 2004 she was invited to participate at the thematic Artist Residency Informal Architectures Symposium in Banff, Alberta to create work and to do an artist presentation. She was a sessional teacher at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto from 2005 until 2011. Her most recent artist presentation was at the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade coinciding with her solo survey exhibition at the Gallery-Legacy Milica Zorić and Rodoljub Čolaković in 2023. Other artist presentations include Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and the other one in Havana, Cuba for the "International Artists' Presentation". She utilizes her materials and converts them into imaginative depictions of the body, while exploring the conflicting boundaries of pleasure and pain. Perunovich filled pantyhose with everyday objects to stretch the material to test its physical limits. (Oboro, Montreal, Quebec) 2004: Whole - House In Exile (Hamilton Artists Inc., Hamilton, Ontario) 2003: (W)hole (Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, Ontario)

Group exhibitions

2008: Re: Location (Ace Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba) 2008: Transitory Places (Occurrence, Montreal, Quebec) 2007: The Structure Of Survival (Galerie du Nouvel Ontario, Sudbury, Ontario) 2006: Parallel World (Vu, Quebec City, Quebec) 2000: Collective Unconscious Project 2 (Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, Ontario)