Biography

Swiss and Italian visual artist, graphic designer and art director. Milena (1979) lives and works in Vevey, Switzerland.

After over a decade as a designer and art director in agencies across Switzerland and abroad, she founded her own studio, KANULART in 2012. Self-taught, she gradually moved toward visual arts, drawing on her design background to develop a distinctive formal language rooted in imperfection, rhythm, and subtle tension.

Since 2023, her work has been shown in group, duo and solo exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad, marking a transition from paper-based compositions to spatial and three-dimensional explorations.

Her journey reflects an ongoing dialogue between design and contemporary art, shaped by an intuitive process, a growing engagement with spatial experience and perception, and a conscious ecological sensitivity.

Portfolio available upon request.

Artistic Vision

A work that explores the tensions between control and surrender, and imperfection as a source of inspiration.

Influenced by my autoimmune condition, which causes tremors, I work with gestures that resist control. Each line drawn becomes a trace of presence, of effort, of vulnerability. I do not seek to correct the imperfect, but to integrate it — to let it breathe within structures, creating spaces where fragility coexists with precision.

Rooted in a minimalist visual language, my compositions embrace repetition, negative space, and geometric simplicity. But unlike a systematic or industrial minimalism, my approach allows for softness — an organic instability within the grid. Inspired by the language of minimal art, I extend this tradition by embracing imperfection as a poetic counterpoint. In this way, balance becomes dynamic, and rhythm becomes an echo of the body.

My work is part of a broader reflection on how we relate to fragility, rhythm, and spatial awareness — individually and collectively. Through forms that appear calm but are charged with subtle tension, I explore how repetition, silence, and restraint can become tools of quiet resistance. It is an ecological posture as much as an aesthetic one — one that values what is already there, what is minimal, what is enough.

In my recent series, such as Imperfections Alignées and Expanding Perspectives, I explore the thresholds between drawing and sculpture, presence and perception. Through painted wooden forms installed in dialogue with architectural or natural space, I seek to create contemplative encounters — where viewers are invited to slow down, shift their gaze, and inhabit the in-between.

My process remains intuitive, but deeply intentional — each element is positioned with care, allowing the composition to hold space for silence and breath. In a world shaped by precision and acceleration, I choose to celebrate irregularity, stillness, and the generative power of imperfection.

A woman with long dark hair and glasses, dressed in black, is leaning on a wooden desk with her hand on a rotary phone. The desk holds a small potted plant, a candle holder, and a phone. There is a wooden chair in front of the desk and a blanket underneath. The scene is in a room with plain light-colored walls and a wooden floor.

Exhibitions

March 29-31, 2024 >
Group show, The Holy Art Gallery, Barcelona (ES)
The Holy Art Magazine, Issue 1 - June 24, page 56

May 1-31, 2024 >
Group show, Cipriarte Gallery, Venezia (IT)

June 13-16, 2024 >
Group show, ARTEXPO BASEL2024, Basel (CH)

July 1-31, 2024 >
Group show, Nicoleta Gallery, Berlin (DE)

September 5-7, 2024 >
Group show, 2x10Hz, Popup31, Vevey (CH)

November 8-23, 2024 >
Solo show, Imperfections Alignées, Galerie Lac, Vevey (CH)

November 30-1/December 2024 >
Live Painting, Imperfections Oniriques, Open Studios, Vevey (CH)

13.03-26.06 2025 >
Solo show, Expanding Perspectives, Mosaic Room, Vevey (CH)

20-28 juin 2025 >
Group show, Kollectiv 5, Galerie Karin Wunderlin, Zürich (CH)

December 6, 2025 >
Live Painting, Imperfections Oniriques, Open Studios, Vevey (CH)