Bio
ASTA was born in Germany and had her primary and secondary schooling during and after the second world war. She completed her nursing training in Hamburg and then moved to London, England where she did some postgraduate nursing studies. After living in England for eight years she immigrated to Canada with her husband and children and settled in Calgary.
She started drawing and painting in London and continued in Calgary with the Continuing Education Program. In 1978 she began full time studies at the Alberta College of Art & Design and received her Diploma of Fine Arts in 1982. She continued her studies at the University of Calgary on a part time basis and completed her BFA in 1989.
Since then she has participated in Emma Lake Workshops twice and was a participant at the Atlin Arts Centre five times.
She has travelled widely visiting Sweden, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain England, Australia, Germany and lately in Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Russia, Turkey and Ecuador.
She has participated in annual shows with the Red Deer Arts Council and various group shows in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia.
Her first solo exhibition ‘Love’ was held at the Court House Gallery in Red Deer in 1992, which was followed by another solo show about the environment ‘Animal Protest’ at the same location in 1997. This same exhibition was shown at the Ferntree Gallery in Cochrane in 1998 and at the Edmonton Misericordia Hospital in 1999.
In 2000 she participated in a two person show about ‘Love’ with a ceramicist at the Generation’s Gallery in Stony Plain. In 2006 she had a solo show ‘Change’ at the Red Deer Arts Council. Her last solo show ‘Pulse of Istanbul’ was in 2012 in Red Deer.
ASTA is a member of the Alberta Society of Artists and participates in their annual shows. She has been a member of the Red Deer Arts Council since 1993 and recently had a solo show entitled ‘Philosophical Thought’ in August 2020.
In 2015 ASTA was invited to become a member of Group9 and has participated in their shows in Calgary and Saskatoon.
ASTA values her intuition in her response to the complex world we live in and her paintings express this gut reaction. The relationships we nurture, our ambitions and the choices we make have an important input into who we are.
Her early influences were Picasso, Kandinsky and Rauschenberg. ASTA recycles, reconstructs and manipulates in her works.