Jana Sterbak

Jana Sterbak (born 19 March 1955) is a Canadian artist best known for her conceptual sculptures that are made about and in relation to the body. She is renowned for her dark and ironically feminist pieces such as I Want You to Feel the Way I Do… (The Dress) (1984–85), Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic (1987), Remote Control (1989), and others.

Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, Sterbak immigrated as a teenager with her parents to Vancouver in 1968, after the Prague Spring, where she attended Kitsilano High School. She attended the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1973-74 and the University of British Columbia in 1974-75 before moving to Montréal to complete her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1977 at Concordia University.

It is worth noting the intense Czeck culture that Sterbak was surrounded by and continues to appreciate (for example the works of Kafka, Kundera and Capek) as strong buttressing references in her ironic and often pessimistic artwork. Coming from this background “it is not surprising, then, that the theme of constraint, imposed from within and from without, should have become a major preoccupation in her work” (Nemiroff p. 15).

Sterbak works with the theme of control in pieces such as Remote Control (1989). She created a large metal skirt on wheels that elevates the woman wearing it while its movement is directed by an electric controller held by the viewer. In a conversation with the curator Milena Kalinovska, Sterbak says:

“In a lot of my work one has to decide whether one is the controlling agent or being controlled, and to decided what are the pros and cons of both situations” (Nemiroff p. 47)

The surprising variety of materials used in Sterbak’s sculptures has a Dadaist sprit and is significant in expressing meaning through materials. The meat she used in Vanitas; Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic (1987) has emotional and symbolic value implying death in relation to the piece being worn as a dress by a woman. The network of relations among the materials defines what she calls ‘states of being’ between freedom and restraint. Her work has Surrealist affinities that acknowledge experiences of uncanny and unconscious desires that go beyond reason. She doubles the self in her art through objects that are worn on the body or suggest a presence, and they convey a sense of otherness through a psychic state of being.

Sterbak is a recipient of the 2012 Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts.