Mileva Roumer

Year of birth: 1997.
Where do you live: Montreal, Canada
Describe your art in three words: Purposeful, humanist, and nature driven.
Your discipline: multidisciplinary visual artist (jewelry making, photography, painting, illustration, sculpture, literature/poetry).
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Can you tell us about your journey as an artist and how your background in visual art from CVM, Montreal has influenced your work?

Art was something intuitive for me, something that resonated deep in my core, so personal and so needed to face the adversities and systemic challenges of the world. I had so many passions: psychology, philosophy, agriculture, photography, writing and so on. When I heard for the first time the word “Visual, art” I felt like for once I wouldn’t have to pick one thing and I could just be me, multifaceted.

I thought that art school would bring the light, even more passion and understanding. If some teachers stood out to me, it was a terrible experience that made me for a time hate painting and making art. It took me 2 years to come back and find again my touch and my intuitive spark that I started with. This experience was so important because after that I realized that this connection needed to be protected and I needed to create space where my passion was fueled and where I was unapologetic about it. Without that and the difficulties, I would not have pursued art, since it was just my own hidden experience and I never saw it as a career or as something that I could do for people’s gaze. Choosing to not fall into the scholar art path and to nurture my unique touch was the first step to me that crafted my journey, despite the outside pressure to conform. The experience of presenting my projects and highlighting my curiosity in my work was needed to influence my strength, ease and confidence in my practice.

Mileva Roumer | The leave stalkat night | 2024

How did your hunger for art, connection, and literature transform into your current multidisciplinary practice?

Leaving my country behind at a young age, living through the turmoil Haiti has been put through by the international force and understanding that in the international scale justice is a play, an illusion that is fed to keep us asleep. I needed to cope with my anger with this world that didn’t make any sense to me, with my sadness seeing injustice sit at everyone’s table without any repercussions. The tactic of dehumanization that I saw on a world wide scale felt so frustrating and made me lose hope sometimes.

To find new ways to keep my inner child, my hope into the world blooming. Art and literature was how my misunderstood voice that I suppressed to others but kept intimate with my brushes and my sketchbook, held my questioning and my curiosity of the world. From a broken teenager feeling hopeless under the weight of the world, my work evolved to seek connection, to highlight the inherent spiritual link we have with mother earth and nature, poetry became the driving force I used to make the change that I wanted to see. I understood how our lives are all the same from our needs, to be seen, to be loved, to find purpose, we were all looking for those things. Some emotions were distorted with the early challenges faced but the source was all the same.

Mileva Roumer | Orange generation | 2024

Your work often touches on themes of nature, ecology, and humanity. What inspires you to explore these themes in your art?

Since I was young, I felt connected to nature, to animals that were immediately drawn to me. I always took it as mothers earth’s love letter, watching over and wiping the loneliness I had to face early on. Humanity is the only destiny. We are learning everyday to be human, to process heavy emotions and to go to the root of compassion, of care and to transition toward the energy of love. We are becoming human everytime that we understand what drives us and find singularity within the roots that we all share. We are all one after all, branches and different leaves but from the same source.When we think it that way we can overcome everything, with the genocide of sudan, congo palestine, the orchestrated violence in so many countries like Haiti. Time is asking us to come back to another, war has no heart, but our flesh is alive, our spirit is sparkling. Our soul knows that children and the world doesn’t deserve to witness the collective slaughter of our humanity.

How do you use your art to transcend social barriers and foster a sense of connection and change?

My first poetry book “Filaments of self” was written with the intention to dive deeply into healing, my works always come with poetry that has affirmations or words to align within oneself.
I struggled when I was younger with extreme fear of humans, betrayal, violence and so much pain was witnessed by my younger self.

I was so terrified of people, I could always think that they would hurt me. It took me my own strength, to go beyond myself to trust in life again. Experiencing those extreme fears, the overwhelming weight of separation and isolation so early on. Those are the same emotions that helped me ironically to walk the path of understanding others, deep to my core, for seeing others. Through my art and the themes of my exhibitions centered around healing, connecting with oneself, I want to help in my own way to bring light into the world, to embody it and to inspire others to let down the walls we were thought to build. We are social creatures for a reason. That’s how we move mountains when we are connected, not separated.

Mileva Roumer | Between the waves and the water of the earth | 2024

Can you walk us through your creative process when starting a new piece? How do you decide on the mediums and techniques to use?

My art is truly intuitive, I listen to what my inner guidance tells me, depending on the theme some mediums feel better. When it’s time to create work that is more conceptual I use acrylic on canvas, when it’s time for works that focus more on the emotions and the details I focus on illustration. Sometimes I write the poem first and it inspires me the painting that comes out of it. And sometimes it’s the other way. After contemplating and meditating making sure that my energy is totally vibrant and ready to be purposeful I set my tools and I am ready to immerse myself into a world that bridges into my reality. My art is before all intuitive and a process of time. I always allow myself to not rush the art and to let it take time, as long as it needs to come through. Some of my best pieces took years to form and to mold into their best versions and those are the ones exhibited that proved that anything made with genuine intention will shine through.

What upcoming projects or exhibitions are you most excited about?

I started my brand Zantray, highlighting the artistic representation of nature in my environmentally conscious handcrafted conscious jewelry and sculpture. As adornment is a spiritual act of self love and of honoring one’s body, it felt so rewarding to take my passion to the next level. The official launch of “Filaments of self” will be in Montreal and is also coming with the french version “Les filaments de l’etre” With exhibitions planned and collaborations with magazines and authors. I am also working on my upcoming poetry book: “Earth, do you hear my voice?”
I am excited about the reception and the kindness and the love my projects received. It is definitely a testament it is important to honor our gifts and to be kind to our progress, our process and to trust the journey ahead.

Mileva Roumer | Portals of the soul | 2024

What does art mean to you on a personal level, and how has it impacted your personal journey of healing and self-love?

Art was the friend I sought for, for a child that felt so alone, left with the world to navigate with, with no mentor to seek and the difficulty to come to terms with an artificial life, where separation and behaviors that lead to pain and hate is promoted as a tool of control. Art gave me the chance to explore what I wanted.
It was something that made me feel alive and permitted me to explore and understand all the palette of my emotions. To me this is the kindest and also the most challenging gift that I was given, the one to understand myself and others through how I pour my flowing experience with my surroundings and my environment into tangible matter.
If my visual art is about showing our world, my poetry is a travel within the deep, the core of the world and the exploration of what makes us human.
Showing myself authentically without the fear of judgment, from my way to express my inner world to my art, breaking the ice of the fear to be seen, of the fear to be known was a journey with my art as a witness, it helped tremendously to integrate and accept my path with care and love.