Think Flower, an exhibition in INDEXG PRINTROOM, is a series of eight drypoints by Irina Schestakowich. Each print varies slightly from the other and they are printed mostly on Japanese handmade paper. Unlike the norm in printing editions of the same image, each print is unique.

"I think not,
Flower is not thinking,
Like my line,
it just is."
(Irina Schestakowich)

This group of small prints deals with the artist's obsession with both flowers and paper. Her flower language grew out of her flower awareness. Nothing to do with reality, nothing to do with the accurateness of things. It is the spirit of her visual intentions that matter here. Her work is universal. It is based on her personal response to the essence of things regardless of time or place or specificity.

In the working process, the artist does not get caught up in the technical aspect. Instead she is responding to the special paper respectfully and in sympathy with it. There are slightly different subtle changes in each piece and, no two prints of hers are ever identical.

Irina Schestakowich was born in Germany, raised in Belgium and Montreal, a graduate of University of Victoria, BC. in Fine Arts with a major in Classical Buddhist Imagery. She has been a printmaker since 1985. A resident of Toronto, Irina Schestakowich has exhibited nationally and internationally and just won First Prize in the Saunders Waterford Paper contest in 2008.